Development of impregnated sorbents for the control of elemental mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants
Sulfur-impregnated activated carbon developed in the laboratory showed superior performance for mercury uptake in comparison to other potential sorbents. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether a different sulfur impregnation protocol using hydrogen sulfide as a sulfur source can produce an equally effective mercury sorbent. In addition, several other impregnates (copper chloride, anthraquinone, picolyl amine, and thiol) were evaluated for their ability to enhance adsorptive capacity of virgin activated carbon for elemental mercury. The effect of sulfur impregnation method on mercury removal efficiency was examined using impregnation with elemental sulfur (BPLS) at high temperature and hydrogen sulfide oxidation (BPLH-series) at low impregnation temperature. The performance of both BPLS and BPLH-series increased significantly over the virgin BPL carbon. BPL impregnated for 0.25 hr (BPLH-0.25) showed best performance for mercury adsorption. Although BPLS and BPLH-0.25 had similar sulfur content, BPLS showed much better performance. The dynamic adsorption capacity of BPL carbon impregnated with copper chloride (BPLC) was found to increase with an increase in empty bed contact time and chloride content and to decrease with an increase in process temperature. All chloride impregnated activated carbons exhibited appreciable initial mercury breakthrough due to slow kinetics of mercury uptake, while substantial concentrations of oxidized mercury species were detected in the effluent from a fixed-bed adsorber. The BPL impregnated with anthraquinone and thiol exhibited high dynamic adsorption capacities at 25 C, but had much lower dynamic adsorption capacities at 140 C. BPL impregnated with picolyl amine (BPLP) exhibited very poor dynamic adsorption capacities at both 25 and 140 C. The chelating agent-impregnated carbons exhibited lower dynamic adsorption capacities than BPLS.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20002207
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-990608-; TRN: IM200002%%207
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Air and Waste 92nd Annual Meeting and Exhibition, St. Louis, MO (US), 06/20/1999--06/24/1999; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating Systems: Windows 3.1, '95, '98 and NT; Macintosh; and UNIX; PBD: 1999; Related Information: In: Air and Waste 92nd annual meeting and exhibition proceedings, [9500] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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