Study on the preparation and mechanism of environmentally friendly polysaccharide-xanthan gum gel dust suppressants.

In response to the dust pollution problem in open-pit mines, an environmentally friendly network structure with a dust suppressor structure was prepared by grafting acrylamide (AM) monomers onto xanthan gum (XG). The results show that the polymer produced from 1 g XG, 15 g AM, and 0.45 g trimethylolpropane triglycidyl ether (TTE) had a more orderly structured gel with a viscosity of 81.08 mPa·s and a crust thickness of 3.3 mm. The structure of the product was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermogravimetric analysis (TG-DSC), confirming the success of the graft copolymerization reaction. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed a uniform and dense protective layer on the dust surface, indicating that the dust suppressor effectively penetrated and filled the gaps between dust particles, causing particle aggregation. The dust suppressor had a dust erosion rate of only 24.12 % at a wind speed of 9 m/s. The hydroxyl groups of XG, the amino groups of AM, and the vinyl groups of TTE crosslink to form a network structure, optimizing the adhesion, filling, and aggregation effects between dust particles. The dust suppressors studied here have good wetting, moisturizing, and degradable properties, which can provide significant economic and socioenvironmental benefits to the field of dust control.