Development of a Robust Self-Healing Biomass Composite Gel Material for Spontaneous Combustion Prevention in Coal Mines

ABSTRACTThe research in this paper focuses on the development of a recyclable, efficient and environmentally friendly fireproofing material for mining applications. Therefore, we formulated a novel composite gel named sodium alginate composite gel (PBSL-3) with sodium alginate, alkali lignin and polyvinyl alcohol as raw materials and borax as cross-linking agent. The success of the synthesis of PBSL gel material was verified by scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy experiments. The good self-healing and ability of PBSL-3 was verified by self-healing, thermal stability and rheological performance experiments; The material has a moderate viscosity and exhibits suitable rheological properties at different shear rates, making it suitable for pipeline transportation; In addition, the weight loss of the gel material was only 64.43% at the programmed warming to a temperature of 160°C, presenting a lesser rate of weight loss, and the material lost only 58% of its weight at temperatures up to 800°C. The flame retardancy of the PBSL-3 gel material was verified by programmed warming experiments and small-scale fire extinguishing experiments. The experimental results showed that the material critical temperature of the coal samples treated with the material was delayed from 100°C to 130 °C, and the CO and C2H4 gas inhibition was 41.98% and 58.12%, respectively, and the flame retardancy was 56.41% at a temperature of 200°C. Small-scale fire extinguishing experiments show that the overall fire extinguishing effect of PBSL gel material is better, and it can effectively extinguish spontaneous coal combustion fires.KEYWORDS: Coal spontaneous combustiongel materialflame retardant propertyself-healing AcknowledgementsThis work was funded by the National key research and development program [Grant Numbers 2022YFC2503201]; Independent Research fund of Joint National-Local Engineering Research Centre for Safe and Precise Coal Mining (Anhui University of Science and Technology) [NO.EC2021019].Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China [2022YFC2503201]; Independent Research fund of Joint National-Local Engineering Research Centre for Safe and Precise Coal Mining (Anhui University of Science and Technology) [EC2021019].