High organic sulfur coal derived carbon-based sorbent for Hg0 capture from coal-fired flue gas

Abstract

To develop the high value utilization of high organic sulfur coal instead of combustion as well as save the cost of mercury pollution control, we attempted to transmute the inherent sulfur of high organic sulfur coal, in the case of LF coal (which is from Linfen city, China), to active sulfur species for mercury capture by doping metal oxides, and CuO performed best among various metal oxides. The sorbent (or activated sample) prepared from LF coal with doping CuO is labelled LF+Cu-A, around which a series of experiments were conducted. Firstly, the effects of operational conditions, including GHSV (gas hourly space velocity), temperature and flue components, on the mercury capture performance of LF+Cu-A were thoroughly investigated, and results showed that LF+Cu-A had an excellent mercury capture performance. The average mercury capture efficiency is 97.8 % during a two-hour test under N2+O2+H2O+SO2+NO atmosphere with GHSV of 240000 h−1 and temperature of 120 °C. Secondly, the experimental data were fitted by four kinetic models, and it is found that the mercury adsorption process under low temperatures (60, 90, 120 °C) and high temperature (150 °C) are in the best agreement with the pseudo-first-order model and the intra-particle diffusion model respectively. Last, the mercury capture mechanisms of LF+Cu-A were revealed by Hg-TPD (Hg-temperature programed desorption) experiment, Raman analysis and XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectrometer) spectra, and it is indicated that the multiple sulfur species and Cu2+ play roles in the mercury capture process, during which elemental mercury are oxidized to HgS and fixed on the surface of LF+Cu-A.