Home – Home – Jornals – Chemistry for Sustainable Development 2023 number 3

Intense coal mining at the territory of our country, related to the growing amounts of exported fuel, promotes the development of logistic infrastructure but at the same time causes a worsening of the environmental situation near coal mining enterprises. One of the ways to cope with the surfaces that generate dust, in particular fine coal dust particles, is surface treatment with hydrophobising organosilicon emulsion. However, the problem connected with enhancing the hydrophobicity of coatings formed by the emulsion has not been solved yet. This parameter is estimated by determining the wetting angle. The efficiency of modification and the coalescing ability of various additives in the aqueous emulsions of organosilicon liquid GKZh-94 are evaluated in the present work from changes in the wetting angle. The dependences of film wettability changes on the modifying and coalescing agents, and on their amount in the emulsion are demonstrated. The dependences of wetting angle changes on the amounts of the modifying and coalescing agents in the emulsion are plotted on the basis of the polynomial approximations of functions. It is established that preliminary modification of the emulsifier causes an increase in the hardness of polyvinyl alcohol, which hinders coalescence of particles in the emulsion. It is also determined as a result of a comparative analysis that the best wetting angle values are detected for the emulsions with the emulsifier modified with a small amount of glutaric aldehyde, with the high concentration of ethylene glycol as a coalescing agent. The use of glutaric aldehyde in the amount of 0.1-0.25 % and ethylene glycol in the amount of 3-6 % of the total mass of emulsion will allow an increase in the wetting angle of the formed coatings to 125°.