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Updated: Feb 23, 2026

Two-way Valorization of Blast Furnace Slag: Synthesis of Precipitated Calcium Carbonate and Zeolitic Heavy Metal Adsorbent
Published on: February 21, 2017
NaA zeolite derived from blast furnace slag: its application for ammonium removal
Hongwei Guo1, Lizhen Tang2, Bingji Yan1
1Shagang School of Iron and Steel, Soochow University, Suzhou 215021, China
Abstract:
In this paper, high value added NaA zeolite material was prepared from blast furnace (BF) slag by hydrothermal method and its adsorption behavior on the removal of ammonium ion was investigated. It was found out that the synthetic NaA cubic zeolite with smaller crystal size obtained at nSiO2/nAl2O3 = 2 and nH2O/nNaOH = 20 showed better adsorption performance. The kinetics of the adsorption of ammonium ion by synthesized NaA zeolite was fitted by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The intra-particle diffusion modeling reveals that two mixed rate-controlling mechanisms were involved in the adsorption process. The relatively high value of activation energy of 92.3 kJ·mol-1 indicates a high impact of temperature on the adsorption rate, and the nature of ammonium adsorption is chemical reaction rather than physisorption. Based on the thermodynamics calculations, the adsorption of ammonium was found to be an endothermic, spontaneous process. The adsorption isothermal analysis showed that the Langmuir model could be well fitted and a maximum adsorption capacity of 83.3 mg·g-1 of NH4+ was obtained. Thus, it was demonstrated that by forming low cost NaA zeolite and using it for environmental remediation, the synchronous minimization of BF slag and ammonia nitrogen contamination could be achieved.
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