Recycling, reuse, and resource recovery from fly ash

Fly ash (FA) is a particulate residue from power plant boiler by burning oil or biomass. In this study fly ash was used to (a) remove total organic carbon (TOC) from intake water; (b) clean up an offshore oil spill; and (c) compost and stabilize municipal sludge. Firstly, oil fly ash (OFA) from oil-fired power plants was characterized, cleaned, homogenized, and activated to prepare activated carbon (AC). Since the drinking water from many small communities in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has high levels of dissolved natural organic matter (NOM) in their water intake sources, causing the formation of disinfection by-products (DBPs) which are harmful to health, the AC from OFA was used to reduce DBP formation in the drinking water by removing NOM before chlorination. The NOM is typically measured as TOC. The results showed that the AC from fine and coarse OFA could remove 90% and 60% of the TOC from the source water, respectively. Secondly, acid treated OFA and activated carbon obtained from OFA (AC-OFA) were used to remove oil from the surface of water, by agglomerating oil droplets to form larger particles which could attach with the OFA. Due to the nature of hydrophobic, both OFA samples can keep floating on the water surface without sedimentation. The oil adsorption capacity of OFA could go up to 1.0