Use of waste from mineral coal combustion in thermeletric mills in the production of new materials: An analysis from scientific and patent articles

Abstract

Coal is widely used for the production of thermal energy. Coal ashes, resulting from combustion, are harmful to the environment and demand solutions for its reuse. This is a national and global problem. Thus, the objective of this research was to map the scientific and technological applications, on a global scale, of coal ash, in the production of vitreous and ceramic materials. The international scientific data bases used in this study were Web of Science (WOS), Scopus (SC) and Science Direct (SD). For treatment and analysis of the data, we used the tools Cite Space II, Carrot2 and Paper Machines (for Heat Mapping technique), and as technological basis of patents we used Espacenet. The collection, treatment and analysis of patent information was performed with Patent2Net tool. All tools employed in this study are public and free. As a result, we founded 174 articles and 657 patent documents, in the period from 1951 to 2015. No Brazilian patents were identified. On the other hand, the results allowed the systematization of information in the state of the art on the use of coal ash wastes in the production of vitreous and ceramic materials, in line with the National Solid Waste Policy and with a view to the possibilities of sustainable innovations. The resulting information may be useful in identifying patents and technologies with potential for replication to the problem of coal residues at national and international levels. As a practice, the process of mapping, extraction and analysis. So the information from this study may be replicated in different areas of knowledge and fields of application.