As one of the world's largest industrial solid wastes, the coal gangue not only takes up a large area of land, but also harms the environment such as the atmosphere and the soil. Related researches show that the coal gangue can be used as an environmentally friendly material after being pretreated with its environmentally friendly performance. This paper reviews the resource-recycling methods and related researches of the coal gangue reused as environmental materials, including three aspects. The coal gangue enjoys a certain adsorption performance against pollutants such as nutrients, heavy metals and organic matter. Thus, it can be used as the economical adsorbent after pretreatment. With its high strength after being calcinated, it can be used as recycled building aggregate to produce permeable bricks and permeable asphalt. The organic matter and trace elements in the coal gangue can increase the content of the humic acid in the soil and improve the soil quality, then promote plant growth. This area is a prospective research direction, to improve the pretreatment method of the coal gangue, and explore the removal effect and the mechanism for different or multiple pollutants. In the actual production, more processing methods such as the crushing and the screening of the coal gangue could be developed, the systematic fertilization process should be established and applied. More comprehensive related standards should be formulated. New ideas and research directions are suggested for the management and the friendly utilization of the coal gangue.

coal gangue  /  resource utilization  /  adsorption  /  materials