Project CHARPHITE: Presentation and up to date of Porto University results.

ANA CLAUDIA SANTOS; BARBARA BIALECKA; MIHAI CRUCERU; CLAUDIA FREIRE; JUAN MANUEL LÁZARO MARTÍNEZ; LUMINITA POPESCU; GEORGETA PREDEANU; NICOLA WAGNER; BRUNO VALENTIM

Braga

Jornada; Jornadas Do Instituto De Terra; 2017

Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra

In response to the increasing demand of raw materials the European Commission (EC) adoptedthe Raw Materials Initiative to limit the impact that material supply shortages may have on theEuropean economy, and launched the ERA-MIN Joint Calls on Sustainable Supply of RawMaterials in Europe. In the list released by EC assessing materials in critical demand, naturalgraphite was identified as having a high supply risk and high economic importance. Therefore,the CHARPHITE project (3rd ERA-MIN Joint Call 2015) aims to demonstrate the technicalfeasibility to utilize fresh and reclaimed landfilled CHAR (carbon-rich solid residue) derivedfrom coal fly ash (FA) and bottom (BA) ash as a substitute for graphite-based materials in greenenergy applications. The project is consortium is composed by 9 partners from 5 countries(Argentina: University of Buenos Aires; Poland: Główny Instytut Górnictwa ? Central MiningInstitute (GIG), and CARBO-GRAF Sp.o.o.; Portugal: Faculty of Sciences of University ofPorto, REQUIMTE ? Rede de química e tecnologia, and Pegop ? Energia Eléctrica, SA;Romania: University Politehnica of Bucharest, and University ?Constantin Brâncuşi? of TârguJiu; South Africa: University of Johannesburg) and is coordinated by the University of Porto(UP). The UP is also committed with sample bank organization and characterization tasks inorder to obtain relevant information to the further char concentration processes. In this sense, atotal of 16 samples from Portugal, Poland, Romania and South Africa were analysed (3 coalsamples, 8 FA samples and 5 BA samples) by LECO methods (total C, and carbon forms), XRF(major oxides) ICP-MS (trace elements), and XRD (mineralogy). Following, FA samples weresieved and proximate analyses were carried out on each fraction to calculate the fixed carbonof the size fractioned samples. The results show that: (i) the BA and FA samples from Polandand BA from Romania have the highest carbon content (>10%), while the remaining sampleshave a carbon content between 5 and 8%; (ii) the main major oxides in the sixteen samplesanalysed are Al203 and SiO2. However, Portuguese and South African (SA) samples are muchricher in these oxides than the samples from Poland and Romania. On the other hand, the Fe2O3content is similar in all BA and FA samples; (ii) the fixed carbon (FC) is mainly concentratedin the 150 μm and 75 μm fractions of the FA, and its value decreases with decreasing particlesize. Acknowledgements: 3rd ERA-MIN Joint Call (2015), project CHARPHITE: Fundaçãopara a Ciência e a Tecnologia, IP (FCT, Portugal; ref. ERA-MIN/0005/2015); Institute of EarthSciences (ICT; FCT UID/GEO/04683/2013), UEFISCDI (Romania; ref. 14, 15/2015); Projectpartner PEGOP ? Energia Eléctrica, SA.; COMPETE POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007690.