Preparation and molecular simulation of an environmentally friendly dust-fixing agent based on chitosan-gelatin

In order to solve the hazard of coal mine dust, a dust-fixing agent (GC-TG-JFC) was prepared with gelatin, chitosan, octadecanol polyoxyethylene ether, and glutamine transaminase. The experimental conditions and the formulation were optimized by response surface method. The ratio of gelatin, chitosan, octadecanol polyoxyethylene ether, and glutamine transaminase was 0.405:0.211:0.095:0.286 and the dilution ratio was 1:30. The results of product performance test showed that the dust fixation rate could reach 99.95% when the wind speed was 9 m/s. The viscosity of the diluted solution was 42.5 mPa·s. The Forcite module in Materials studio software was used to analyze and calculate the radial distribution concentration, diffusion coefficient, and binding energy of the solution. The results showed that GC-TG-JFC migrated more water molecules to the surface of coal through the action of van der Waals force and hydrogen bond. In addition, the binding energy of water molecules increased and the diffusion coefficient decreased, which improved the binding ability of water molecules with coal. It could be found that GC-TG-JFC had good dust fixation performance by combining experiment and molecular dynamics method.