Green Synthesis and Characterization of Metal Chloride-modified Fly Ash Catalysts for Environmental Applications
J. Environ. Nanotechnol., Volume 15, No 2 (June 2026) pp. 762-766
Abstract
Coal fly ash, an industrial waste by-product from thermal power plants, was modified with cobalt chloride and magnesium chloride through a simple impregnation-calcination route to prepare low-cost, modified inorganic solids for physicochemical evaluation. The materials were characterized using FTIR, UV-Visible spectroscopy, XRD, and SEM-EDX to examine changes in bonding environment, optical response, crystal features, morphology, and elemental composition after modification. The results demonstrated the retention of the parent aluminosilicate framework together with low-frequency FTIR changes, additional XRD features following metal chloride treatment, nanometer-scale crystallite sizes of 3.37 nm for CoCl₂/fly ash and 4.45 nm for MgCl₂/fly ash, irregular surface deposits observed in SEM images, and measurable cobalt and magnesium incorporation of 7.25 at.% and 6.48 at.%, respectively, as confirmed by EDX analysis. These findings confirm that cobalt chloride and magnesium chloride treatment effectively altered the structural and compositional characteristics of coal fly ash.
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