Coking wastewater is used to prepare coal slurry, which can be used as combustion and gasification fuel. This
promising technology simultaneously achieves resource utilization and wastewater management. Slurrying
properties are essential to the industrial application of coal slurry. These properties are considerably influenced
by coal surface properties and the adsorption of an additive by coal. In this study, the effects of the internal components (e.g., phenol, ammonia nitrogen, and metal ions) of coking wastewater on the adsorption of an additive
by coal and on coal surface properties were measured. Results showed that the competitive adsorption between
phenol and the additive reduced the amount of additive adsorbed on coal. However, phenol acted as an additive
to improve the wettability of coal particles. Cations (Ca2+, NH4
+, and Na+) adversely affected the slurrying because they weakened the negative charges of coal. Furthermore, a large amount of water was adsorbed due to
the ionic bonding effects, thereby reducing the free water in the coal slurry system. The maximum slurrying concentration of CWCS was 0.8 percentage points higher than that of CWS, suggesting that coking wastewater enhanced the slurrying capability of the coal slurry by integrating the various effects induced by the different internal components.