An electrochemical system for removing and recovering elemental mercury from a gas stream

The impending EPA regulations on the control of mercury emissions from the flue stacks of coal-burning electric utilities has resulted in the development of numerous advanced mercury control technologies such as sorbent injection and in-situ mercury oxidation. Although these technologies can effectively remove mercury from a flue stack they share, along with many other technologies, the common shortcoming of intermedia pollution transfer i.e. the traffic of mercury from the air phase to the solid phase and the subsequent generation of residue for landfill. This work addresses the need for an integrated system of mercury removal and recovery from flue stack gases and from the environment. The research explored the capture of elemental mercury from the gas phase at ambient temperature on an electrically conductive porous sorbent. The mercury loaded sorbent was regenerated at the anode in an electrochemical cell and the oxidized mercury recovered at the cathode as solid elemental mercury. Activated carbon cloth was selected as the most suitable sorbent as it had the highest mercury adsorption capacity of the sorbents tested and was electrically conductive. Direct and indirect electro-oxidation were shown to remove 95% and 100%, respectively, of the elemental mercury from the carbon cloth. After regeneration the carbon cloth was reused without any loss in mercury adsorption capacity. More than 99% of the mercury stripped from the cloth during regeneration was recovered at the cathode.