Accelerated CO2 mineralization technology using fly ash as raw material: Recent research advances

As global climate issues become increasingly pronounced, human society is confronting unprecedented environmental challenges. The escalating anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have intensified the global warming process, resulting in a cascade of environmental degradation issues. CO2 mineralization stands out as a highly promising approach for carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) to mitigate global warming. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current state of accelerated CO2 mineralization using typical industrial solid waste, “fly ash,” as a raw material. The article commences by introducing the physicochemical properties of fly ash, and various typical CO2 mineralization kinetic models. Subsequently, it provides a comprehensive evaluation of accelerated CO2 mineralization pathways, encompassing reactor design (reactor types, operational parameter design, etc.), fly ash activation pretreatment (milling, calcination, etc.), and chemical additives (organic amines, amino acid salts, sodium salts, ammonium salts, etc.). A summarization and analysis of the integrated utilization of products obtained through different mineralization pathways are presented. Finally, the paper discusses the scale-up applications and potential challenges faced by reported fly ash carbonation, emphasizing that research on accelerated solid waste carbonation is an inevitable process for the industrial application of this technology. We hope that this review will contribute to advancing the industrialization of CO2 sequestration through mineralization of solid waste.