Low-Cost Organic Adsorbents for Elemental Mercury Removal from Lignite Flue Gas

Marta Marczak-Grzesik, Stanisław Budzyń, Barbara Tora, Szymon Szufa, Krzysztof Kogut and Piotr Burmistrz
Additional contact information
Marta Marczak-Grzesik: Faculty of Energy and Fuels, AGH University of Science and Technology, Mickiewicz Avenue 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Stanisław Budzyń: Faculty of Energy and Fuels, AGH University of Science and Technology, Mickiewicz Avenue 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Barbara Tora: Faculty of Mining and Geoengineering, AGH University of Science and Technology, Mickiewicz Avenue 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Szymon Szufa: Faculty of Process and Environmental Engineering, Lodz University of Technology, Wolczanska 213, 90-924 Lodz, Poland
Krzysztof Kogut: Faculty of Energy and Fuels, AGH University of Science and Technology, Mickiewicz Avenue 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Piotr Burmistrz: Faculty of Energy and Fuels, AGH University of Science and Technology, Mickiewicz Avenue 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-15

Abstract: The research presented by the authors in this paper focused on understanding the behavior of mercury during coal combustion and flue gas purification operations. The goal was to determine the flue gas temperature on the mercury emissions limits for the combustion of lignites in the energy sector. The authors examined the process of sorption of mercury from flue gases using fine-grained organic materials. The main objectives of this study were to recommend a low-cost organic adsorbent such as coke dust (CD), corn straw char (CS-400), brominated corn straw char (CS-400-Br), rubber char (RC-600) or granulated rubber char (GRC-600) to efficiently substitute expensive dust-sized activated carbon. The study covered combustion of lignite from a Polish field. The experiment was conducted at temperatures reflecting conditions inside a flue gas purification installation. One of the tested sorbents—tire-derived rubber char that was obtained by pyrolysis—exhibited good potential for Hg 0 into Hg 2+ oxidation, resulting in enhanced mercury removal from the flue. The char characterization increased elevated bromine content (mercury oxidizing agent) in comparison to the other selected adsorbents. This paper presents the results of laboratory tests of mercury sorption from the flue gases at temperatures of 95, 125, 155 and 185 °C. The average mercury content in Polish lignite was 465 μg·kg −1 . The concentration of mercury in flue gases emitted into the atmosphere was 17.8 µg·m −3 . The study analyzed five low-cost sorbents with the average achieved efficiency of mercury removal from 18.3% to 96.1% for lignite combustion depending on the flue gas temperature.

Keywords: lignite; anthropogenic emission; mercury removal; flue gases purification; low-cost asorbents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/8/2174/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/8/2174/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:8:p:2174-:d:535562

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().