Novel Materials Synthesized from Red Mud, Bagasse, and Bentonite for Gas Treatment by CO2 Absorption

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a gas which causes both impact to atmosphere (one of greenhouse gases) and decrease heating value of gaseous fuel (such as natural gas, biogas, landfill and sewage gas). Hence, there are many investigations to find solutions for gas treatment and carbon dioxide absorption from researchers. Catalyst or synthesized materials is to optimize processes of CO2 treatment and absorption to obtain the best benefit for factories and community. This study utilized industrial wastes of red mud and bagasse in combination with bentonite to synthesis the novel material (absorbent) responding requirements for the process of gas treatment. More specially, raw materials are impacting negatively on the environment. In which, red mud is solid waste of Bayer process from bauxite mining which is being the hard problem to have solutions for its management and utilization and bagasse is industrial waste of sugar factories. Wet pressing method was applied to form the absorbent samples by mixing red mud, bagasse, bentonite, and water in mixtures. The samples were put in furnace for heating process at 300°C for 2 hours. The final samples were characterized for microstructure using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). And then the absorbents were tested for gas absorption capacity of carbon dioxide. The results showed a potential application of the novel absorbent materials for gas treatment.