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ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Commodity Utilization Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #214955
Title: Agricultural By-products as Mercury Adsorbents in Gas Applications

Author
item Klasson, K Thomas
item Boihem, Larry
item Lima, Isabel
item Marshall, Wayne

Submitted to: Meeting Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/25/2007
Publication Date: 12/10/2007
Citation: Klasson, K.T., Boihem, L.L., Lima, I.M., Marshall, W.E. Agricultural by-products as mercury adsorbents in gas applications. In: Proceedings of the Sixteeth International Symposium on Mine Planning and Equipment Selection (MPES 2007) and the Tenth International Symposium on Environmental Issues and Waste Management in Energy and Mineral Production (SWEMP 2007). Singhal, R.K., Fytas, K., Ge, H. (eds.). The Reading Matrix, Irvine, CA. p. 398-403. CDROM.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Increased emphasis on reduction of mercury emissions from coal fired electric power plans have resulted in environmental regulations that may in the future require application of activated carbons as mercury sorbents. The sorbents could be injected into the flue gas stream where is adsorbs the mercury. The sorbent (now loaded with mercury) would be removed via filtration or other means from the flue gas. Our preliminary work has demonstrated that activated carbon made from agricultural and animal byproducts can adsorb mercury from air with great efficiency. In experiments, manure-based activated carbon removed over 95% of elemental mercury from air streams both in its granular and powder forms. A commercial activated carbon product tested in similar experiments did not perform as well as the manure-based product.