Gaseous mercury capture by coir fibre coated with a metal-halide |
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Authors: | Damien N McCarthy Grant C Edwards |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University , Sydney, NSW, Australia damien.mccarthy@hdr.mq.edu.au;3. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University , Sydney, NSW, Australia |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACT Toxic gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) is emitted to the atmosphere through a variety of routes at rates estimated at over 5000 tonnes per annum, a large fraction of which is Anthropogenic. It is then widely disbursed atmospherically and eventually deposited, where it is subject to further biogeochemical cycling, including re-emission. Research into capture of point source mercury emissions revolves almost exclusively around the use of activated carbons, various catalytic oxidation substrates, or as a by-product of acidic treatments of flue gas during SOx and NOx reduction methods. GEM is very non-reactive in its native state, but capture rates are greatly enhanced if GEM is first oxidized, or at least where oxidation states play a role at the substrate GEM interface. Little research has been devoted to capture of GEM directly. However, presented here is a novel adaption of coir fibers for use as a substrate in capturing GEM emissions directly. Various coir modifications were investigated, with the most effective being fibers coated with CuI crystals dispersed in a non-crosslinked poly-siloxane matrix. Scanning electron microscopy was used to view surface morphologies, and sorption characteristics were measured using atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). These results indicate that coir fibers modified by CuI-SiO2] n show great promise in their ability to efficiently sorb GEM, and could potentially be utilized in a variety of configurations and settings where GEM emissions need to be captured. |
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