Preparation of steel slag porous sound-absorbing material using coal powder as pore former

The aim of the study was to prepare a porous sound-absorbing material using steel slag and fly ash as the main raw material, with coal powder and sodium silicate used as a pore former and binder respectively. The influence of the experimental conditions such as the ratio of fly ash, sintering temperature, sintering time, and porosity regulation on the performance of the porous sound-absorbing material was investigated. The results showed that the specimens prepared by this method had high sound absorption performance and good mechanical properties, and the noise reduction coefficient and compressive strength could reach 0.50 and 6.5 MPa, respectively. The compressive strength increased when the dosage of fly ash and sintering temperature were raised. The noise reduction coefficient decreased with increasing ratio of fly ash and reducing pore former, and first increased and then decreased with the increase of sintering temperature and time. The optimum preparation conditions for the porous sound-absorbing material were a proportion of fly ash of 50% (wt.%), percentage of coal powder of 30% (wt.%), sintering temperature of 1130°C, and sintering time of 6.0 hr, which were determined by analyzing the properties of the sound-absorbing material.