www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org INFLUENCE OF CURING TEMPERATURE AND TIME ON COMPLETE CONVERSION OF FLY ASH IN TO A FRAMEWORK ALUMINOSILICATE UTILIZING ALKALINEHYDROTHERMAL SYNTHETIC METHODOLOGY HEMA KUNDRA & MONIKA DATTA Department of Chemistry, University of Delhi, Delhi, India ABSTRACT The need of electrical power requires adequate supply of power stations. Although there are various renewable energy sources that do not encounter environmental problems, a number of the power stations are still in India fed by fossil fuels. Coal is one of the major fossil fuels used in thermal power stations and is significantly increasing every year. In the production of electricity using coal, coal fly ash is discharged from thermal power plants and globally, over 500 million tonnes of fly ash is generated annually. About half of the discharged fly ash is used as a raw material for cement and so on and rest of it is disposed to landfill site. Land requirement envisage for disposal of fly ash is about 50,000 acre with an annual expenditure of about Rs500 million for transportation. Thus its disposal poses major challenges and serious environmental and economic problems. To overcome these difficulties it is very important to promote the effective recycling of these waste materials into products of greater value and thus mitigate the depletion of resources and environmental impacts. These objectives can be achieved through zeolitization of fly ash. KEYWORDS: Coal Fly Ash, Zeolite Synthesis, Hydrothermal Method, Synthetic Methodology, Hydroxysodalite Structure Received: Sep 27, 2015; Accepted: Oct 06, 2015; Published: Dec 31, 2015; Paper Id.: IJAPBCRDEC201503 INTRODUCTION Electricity production in India is projected to expand dramatically in the near term to energize new industrial development, while also easing the energy shortages throughout the country. Much of the new growth in electricity production will be fuelled by domestic coal resources; however, there is worldwide concern about increased coal use, since coal combustion not only generates million of tonnes of coal combustion by-products as solid wastes but also emits large amount of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) which will exacerbate climate change. Nearly73% of India’s total installed power generation capacity is thermal and 90% of it is coal based [01, 02]. In the production of electricity, coal are pulverized to powder form and blown into a furnace by high velocity hot air. The pulverized coal is burnt at a temperature higher than melting points of most minerals which is resided within the coal, causing the transformation of physical and chemical properties of such minerals. Some light minerals are not undergone reactions and are remained in the exhaust gas, and this is called fly ash and its amount of fly ash depends on the mineral matter content of coal [03]. Globally, millions of tonnes of fly ash is generated annually from coal based thermal power plants. Because of the increase in the electricity generation, there is consistent increase in the requirement of coal leading to an increased production of fly ash [01, 04]. The disposal of waste materials poses major challenges and can cause serious hazards to human health and the environment, if they are handled incorrectly. As a part of sustainable development, waste management should attempt to reduce waste materials' effect on human health and the environment and to Original Article International Journal of Applied, Physical and Bio-Chemistry Research (IJAPBCR) ISSN(P): 2277-4793; ISSN(E): 2319-4448 Vol. 5, Issue 3, Dec 2015, 19-32 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.