Fly Ash and Mercury Oxidation/Chlorination Reactions. Final Report

摘要

Mercury is a known pollutant that has detrimental effect on human health and environment. The anthropogenic emissions of mercury account for 10 to 30% of worldwide mercury emissions. There is a need to control/reduce anthropogenic mercury emissions. Many mercury control technologies are available but their effectiveness is dependent on the chemical form of mercury, because different chemical forms of mercury have different physical and chemical properties. Mercury leaves the boiler in its elemental form but goes through various transformations in the post-combustion zone. There is a need to understand how fly ash and flue gas composition affect speciation, partitioning, and reactions of mercury under the full range of post-combustion zone conditions. This knowledge can then be used to predict the chemical transformation of mercury (elemental, oxidized or particulate) in the post combustion zone and thus help with the control of mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants. To accomplish this goal present study was conducted using five coal fly ashes. These ashes were characterized and their catalytic activity was compared under selected reaction conditions in a fixed bed reactor. Based on the results from these fly ash experiments, three key components (carbon, iron oxide and calcium oxide) were chosen. These three components were then used to prepare model fly ashes. Silica/alumina was used as a base for these model fly ashes.