REACHING PARTS PER TRILLION CLEAN-UP CRITERION FOR MERCURY IN WATER

摘要

In the last couple of years, emphasis on environmental mercury contamination and elimination of mercuryuse has increased. The U.S. Department of Energy has for many decades maintained a stockpile ofelemental mercury for operations and, as a consequence of its routine use, spills have occurred. Thesehistorical spills have resulted in some contamination of water streams and soils. In this work we examinea newly developed technique for removal of mercury from contaminated groundwater. In this applicationthe mercury concentration was approximately 2.3 parts per billion and the treatment criterion was 200parts per trillion. Several forms of mercury species contributed to the contamination. The treatmenttechnique developed for this water was to convert all forms of mercury, through a series of fast chemicalreactions, to elemental mercury, which was air-stripped from the water. This paper presents preliminarylaboratory work on the method.