Mercury Capture Performance and Kinetics of CCl-Adsorbed Activated Carbon Pretreated by the Mechanochemical Method.

In the present work, CCl-adsorbed activated carbon pretreated by the mechanochemical method (CCl-AC) was produced for gas-phase mercury capture. The physicochemical properties of the CCl-AC sorbent were analyzed via N adsorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The mercury capture performance of the CCl-AC sorbent under different flue gas components was investigated in a fixed-bed experimental device. The programmed temperature desorption of mercury was used to determine the mercury capture product of the spent CCl-AC. Finally, the mass transfer factor model proposed by Fulazzaky was used to analyze mercury capture on the CCl-AC for clarifying its characteristics. The results showed that the prepared CCl-AC can be used as a mercury sorbent because of its high mercury capture performance. Mercury capture by the CCl-AC was interfered by SO and promoted by O and HO. Hg-temperature programmed desorption (Hg-TPD) analysis indicated that the main mercury capture products of the CCl-AC were HgCl and HgO. Because of the presence of SO in flue gas, there was a little HgSO formation on the sorbent. XPS analysis showed that the functional group of C-Cl played the dominant role in Hg capture, and part of the C-Cl groups were converted into Cl after mercury capture. The mercury desorption energy of the spent CCl-AC was 50.49 kJ/mol and stronger compared with that of raw activated carbon. Mass transfer analysis displayed that surface adsorption was the main form at the beginning of mercury adsorption, and the external mass transfer was the mercury adsorption rate-controlling step. Then, mercury adsorption entered the second stage; internal diffusion adsorption stage with internal mass transfer became the adsorption rate control step.