Natural polymers and electrolytes enhanced coal dust suppression and explosion prevention: New insight from experimental and molecular dynamic simulations.

[Display omitted] • Natural polymers and electrolytes enhance dedusting and explosion prevention. • Dust suppression is jointly affected by wetting and agglomerating behaviour. • Wettability is affected by the diffusion coefficient and absolute wetting area. • Electrostatic potential energy and hydrogen bond are significant to agglomeration. • The neutralization between ions significantly reduces the reactivity of coal. This paper expressed a new insight including experimental and molecular dynamic simulations to illuminate multi-scale mechanisms of coal dust suppression and explosion prevention when applying natural polymers and electrolyte. Results reveals that the addition of natural polymers and electrolyte achieve a maximum 11.85% improvement on dedusting rate and 36.36% improvement on suppression speed when compares with the individual application of SDBS, the MIE and MITC also receives a maximum 1.5 times and 23.58% improvement as well. This achievement is jointly affected by the wetting and agglomerating behaviour between suppressant and coal particles. The chain-like ionic structure and two benzene rings offer LS-Na exhibits good planarity in space and can vertically embed into the surface of coal particles. The lower diffusion coefficient and larger wetting area brings LS-Na stronger ability to help SDBS adsorbing on the coal particles and therefore exhibit better wettability. However, higher electrostatic potential difference endows CMC-Na stronger ability to absorb H 2 O molecules to form more viscous liquid environment. More hydrogen bond and higher bond energy of CMC-Na could promote the agglomeration of coal particles. The kinetic analysis reveals that the activation energy of coal particles treated by ternary suppressant is higher than that of binary ones. With the help of neutralization reactions between Na· and Cl· generated by molten NaCl and H· and OH· generated by the combustion, the reactivity of coal particles has been diminished and the combustion chain has been interrupted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]