State of the art: Mercury speciation measurement in coal combustion systems

Conference · Wed Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1997

OSTI ID:351113

Laudal, D L; Heidt, M K; Galbreath, K C ^[1]; Nott, B R ^[2]; Brown, T D ^[3]

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1. Univ. of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND (United States). Energy and Environmental Research Center
2. Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
3. Dept. of Energy, Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Federal Energy Technology Center

The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAAs) require the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assess the health risks associated with mercury. The chemical form of the mercury emissions is important because it appears that the rate of mercury deposition and the type of control strategy used may depend on the type of mercury emitted. It had been speculated that EPA Method 29 can speciate mercury by selective absorption; however, this had not been proven. For the past three years, research sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) has been conducted at the University of North Dakota Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) to evaluate EPA Method 29 and other mercury speciation methods at the bench- and pilot-scale level. Four impinger-based methods and a dry sorbent method were tested at the EERC. These are EPA Method 29 and three modifications of this method: the Ontario Hydro method, the tris-buffer method, and a method proposed by Research Triangle Institute (RTI). The dry sorbent method tested was the Mercury Speciation Adsorption method (MESA) developed by Frontier Geosciences. In addition two mercury analyzers, the Perkin Elmer MERCEM and PS Analytical Sir Galahad, were also tested. Bench- and pilot-scale test results showed that under certain conditions, EPA Method 29, the RTI method, and the MESA method do not appear to speciate mercury correctly. The tris-buffer and Ontario Hydro methods have shown the most potential for success; however, additional development work is necessary. In most cases, the total vapor-phase mercury measured by the Perkin Elmer MERCEM and PS Analytical mercury analyzers was within 20% to 25% compared to the impinger-based methods. ok title

• DOE Contract Number: FC21-93MC30097
• OSTI ID: 351113
• Report Number(s): CONF-970677--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
ADSORBENTS
AIR POLLUTION ABATEMENT
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
COAL
COMBUSTION PRODUCTS
MEASURING METHODS
MERCURY
PERFORMANCE TESTING
PILOT PLANTS