Spherical-shaped CuS modified carbon nitride nanosheet for efficient capture of elemental mercury from flue gas at...

Mercury (Hg⁰) pollution poses a huge threat to human health and the environment due to its high toxicity, long persistence and bioaccumulation in the environment. Most of the traditional Hg⁰ adsorbents have a low reaction rate, high operating cost, especially poor resistance to SO₂, which limited their practical application. In this work, nanosheet g-C₃N₄ was used as the support and modified by CuS to capture flue gas mercury. Take advantage of the large specific surface area of g-C₃N₄ to increase the BET of the composite and decrease the use of CuS. The effects of CuS loading, reaction temperature, and common components in the coal-fired flue gas on the mercury removal performance were studied respectively. The experimental outcomes showed that the 10CuS/g-C₃N₄ (10CuS/CN) reaches as high as almost 100% Hg⁰ removal efficiency under the temperature of 40-120 ℃. Meanwhile the common components like SO₂, NO, HCl and H₂O have no obvious inhibition effects on Hg⁰ removal efficiency of the 10CuS/CN adsorbent. S_x^2- and Cu²⁺ as the primary bonding sites shows a synergy effect on Hg⁰ removal. 10CuS/CN is a promising material for Hg⁰ removal under various flue gas conditions, which is expected to be a substitute for traditional adsorbents.