Novel sorbents for mercury emissions control from coal-fired power plants

The authors have successfully developed novel efficient and cost-effective sorbents for mercury removal from coal combustion flue gases. These sorbents were evaluated in a fixed-bed system with a typical PRB subbituminous/lignite simulated flue gas, and in an entrained-flow system with air simulating in-flight mercury capture by sorbent injection in the ductwork of coal-fired utility plants. In both systems, one of the novel sorbents showed promising results for Hg⁰ removal. In particular, this sorbent demonstrated slightly higher efficiencies in Hg⁰ removal than Darco Hg-LH (commercially available brominated activated carbon) at the similar injection rates in the entrained-flow system. The other novel sorbent showed excellent Hg⁰ oxidation capability, and may enable coal-fired power plants equipped with wet scrubbers to simultaneously control their mercury and sulfur oxides emissions. In addition, fixed-bed results for this sorbent showed that co-injection of a very small amount (∼10%) of raw activated carbon could eliminate almost all of the mercury generated by reactions of Hg⁰ with the sorbent.