Abstract:
Lakvijaya coal power plant, which is in Norochcholai, Puttalam District, Sri Lanka, is the
largest coal power plant in Sri Lanka. It annually produces about 150,000 tonnes of fly ash
(FA) as waste, and the management of it is a pressing concern. Various studies have been
conducted to valorise FA in a useful manner without simply dumping it into the nearby
lands. To this end, we propose the utilisation of FA in wastewater treatments to adsorb
heavy metal ions in wastewater to promote environmental sustainability. The direct
application of FA for that purpose may be questionable due to the contaminants present in
the FA; however, it is reported commercially. Therefore, we attempt to initiate a preprocessed
preparation route to ensure the leachate contains fewer contaminants compared to
the use of raw FA. Washing is a commonly used preliminary pre-processing step, though it
is not studied extensively in the literature with reference to the FA. Herein, we aimed to
study the effects of the number of washing cycles and temperature on the characteristics of
the FA. With the results, we could conclude that washing is an effective means of preprocessing
to alleviate the contaminants of FA, en route for wastewater treatment.
Citation:
Pannilarathne, I.E., Sandaruwan, M.G.L., Mathissan, P., Jayawardena, C.L., & Fernando, W.A.M. (2021). Characterisation of coal fly ash for potential wastewater treatment opportunities. In D.M.D.O.K. Dissanayake & C.L. Jayawardena (Eds.), Proceedings of International Symposium on Earth Resources Management & Environment 2021 (pp. 85-90). Department of Earth Resources Engineering, University of Moratuwa. https://uom.lk/sites/default/files/ere/files/ISERME%202021%20Proceedings_2.pdf