Effects of chemical and physical pre-treatment to natural zeolite catalyst from pottery waste

Natural zeolite catalyst from pottery waste would give some added value to pottery industries such as a proper waste management and a cheaper alternative to existing commercialized catalyst. The purpose of this work is to study catalytic properties of pottery waste via physical and chemical treatments and to characterize the catalytic properties of treated pottery waste. Sungai Sayong pottery waste was turned into powder by crushing, grinding and sieving. Then, it was pre-treated by physical and chemical means of hot water, autoclave, 1M of HCl, 1M Acetic Acid, Hexane and Propanol. The treated and untreated samples were then characterized by using analytical equipment which are Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), X-ray Diffractometer (XRD), BET method, CHNS Elemental Analyzer and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectrometer (FTIR). The results obtained shows that (TGA) each sample have the similar trend of weight loss and temperature stability with the commercialized zeolite. By using elemental analyzer, the amount of organic content for each sample can be seen whereby weak acid sample has the highest content of carbon of 53.8908% while the next highest sample only contains 5.6220% carbon From the analysis of XRD, when being cross-referenced with components of Kaolin which are Si, Al, Mg, Fe, Ti, O₂ showed positive presence of each elements and resembles XRD data of ZSM-5 but with a little lower intensity. BET surface area shows that sample 4,5 and 7 has a positive increment from the pretreatment done as their surface area increases to 30.4137 m₂ /g, 29.2670 m₂/g and 20.6381 m₂ /g compared to sample 1 (untreated sample) which is 19.0779 m₂ /g. FTIR was done to see presence of functional groups which are mostly Al and Si derivatives according to Kaolinite Clay and also ZSM-5. As conclusion, zeolite derived from Sungai Sayong pottery waste has similarity with the commercialized zeolite in term of weight loss, elemental content and functional groups. Strong acid pre-treatment showcased the best results when being characterized compared to the other pretreatments.