Mercury (Hg), a naturally occurring element, is toxic and can lead to negative health impacts for humans and ecosystems. Activated carbon adsorption is effective in treating Hg-laden aqueous effluent for safe discharge. Two modifications of commercially available activated carbon were investigated: iron impregnation to allow for magnetic sorbent recapture and wet chemical oxidation to enhance aqueous Hg capture. The modified carbons were characterized by nitrogen adsorption-desorption, XRD, pHpzc, vibrating sample magnetometry, elemental analysis, and total acidity titration. The 3:1 C:Fe magnetic powdered activated carbon (MPAC) retained a high surface area of 790 m2/g and was 95% magnetically recoverable, with the iron present primarily as maghemite. The characteristics of the surface oxygen modified carbons varied based on the nature of the modifying reagent and its concentration. The modified carbons were applied to trace level Hg solutions (100 μg/L). The 3:1 MPAC achieved the highest adsorption capacity, reaching 91% Hg removal with 2% volatilized and 84% adsorbed. Adsorption occurs primarily as chemisorption, thus allowing for non-hazardous residuals disposal until reaching a loading of greater than 800 μg Hg/ g MPAC.

Many water treatment plants need to remove objectionable trace organic compounds, and activated carbon adsorption is often the best available technology. Utilities face the challenge of having to choose from a large variety of activated carbons, and iodine number or BET surface area values are often utilized in the selection process. Although neither parameter correlates well with adsorption capacities, alternative activated carbon selection criteria based on fundamental adsorbent and adsorbate properties are lacking to date. The first objective of this research was to systematically evaluate the effects of activated carbon pore structure and surface chemistry on the adsorption of two common drinking water contaminants: the relatively polar fuel oxygenate methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) and the relatively nonpolar solvent trichloroethene (TCE). The second objective was to develop simple descriptors of activated carbon characteristics that facilitate the selection of suitable adsorbents for the removal of organic contaminants from drinking water.Originally published by AwwaRF for its subscribers in 2003 This publication can also be purchased and downloaded via Pay Per View on Water Intelligence Online - click on the Pay Per View icon below

Coal-fired power plants are a major anthropogenic source of worldwide mercury (Hg) emissions. Since mercury is considered to be one of the most toxic metals found in the environment, Hg emissions from coal-fired power plants is of major environmental concern. Mercury in coal is vaporized into its gaseous elemental form throughout the coal combustion process. Elemental Hg can be oxidized in subsequent reactions with other gaseous components (homogeneous) and solid materials (heterogeneous) in coal-fired flue gases. While oxidized Hg in coal-fired flue gases is readily controlled by its adsorption onto fly ash and/or its dissolution into existing solution-based sulfur dioxide (SO2) scrubbers, elemental Hg is not controlled. The extent of elemental Hg formed during coal combustion is difficult to predict since it is dependent on the type of coal burned, combustion conditions, and existing control technologies installed. Therefore, it is important to understand heterogeneous Hg reaction mechanisms to predict the speciation of Hg emissions from coal-fired power plants to design and effectively determine the best applicable control technologies. In this work, theoretical and experimental investigations have been performed to investigate the adsorption and in some cases the oxidation, of Hg on solid surfaces, e.g., calcium oxide (CaO), noble metals and activated carbon (AC). The objective of this research is to identify potential materials that can be used as multi-pollutant sorbents in power plants by carrying out both high-level density functional theory (DFT) electronic structure calculations and experiments to understand heterogeneous chemical pathways of Hg. This research uses a fundamental science-based approach to understand the environmental problems caused by coal-fired energy production and provides solutions to the power generation industry for emissions reductions. Understanding the mechanism associated with Hg and SO2 adsorption on CaO will help to optimize the conditions or material to limit Hg emissions from the flue gas desulfurization process. Plane-wave DFT calculations were used to investigate the binding mechanism of Hg species and SO2 on the CaO(100) surface. The binding strengths on the high-symmetry CaO adsorption sites have been investigated for elemental Hg, SO2, mercury chlorides (HgCl and HgCl2) and mercuric oxide (HgO). It has been discovered that HgCl, HgCl2, and SO2 chemisorb on the CaO(100) surface at 0.125 ML coverage. Binding energies of elemental Hg are minimal indicating a physisorption mechanism. Noble metals such as palladium (Pd), gold (Au), silver (Ag), and copper (Cu) have been proposed to capture elemental Hg. Plane-wave DFT calculations have been carried out to investigate the mercury interactions with Pd binary alloys and overlays in addition to pure Pd, Au, Ag, and Cu surfaces. It has been determined that Pd has the highest mercury binding energy in comparison to other noble metals. In addition, Pd is found to be the primary surface atom responsible for increasing the adsorption of Hg with the surface in both Pd binary alloys and overlays. Deposition of Pd overlays on Au and Ag has been found to enhance the reactivity of the surface by shifting the d-states of surface atoms up in energy. The possible binding mechanisms of elemental Hg onto virgin, brominated and sulfonated AC fiber and brominated powder AC sorbents have been investigated through packed-bed experiments in a stream of air and simulated flue gas conditions, including SO2, hydrogen chloride (HCl), nitrogen oxide (NO) nitrogen dioxide (NO2). A combination of spectroscopy and plane-wave DFT calculations was used to characterize the sorption process. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy were used to analyze the surface and bulk chemical compositions of brominated AC sorbents reacted with Hg0. Through XPS surface characterization studies it was found that Hg adsorption is primarily associated with halogens on the surface. Elemental Hg is oxidized on AC surfaces and the oxidation state of adsorbed Hg is found to be Hg2+. Though plane-wave DFT and density of states (DOS) calculations indicate that Hg is more stable when it is bound to the edge carbon atom interacting with a single bromine bound atop of Hg, a model that includes an interaction between the Hg and an additional Br atom matches best with experimental data obtained from extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy. The flue gas species such as HCl and bromine (Br2) enhance the Hg adsorption, while SO2 is found to decrease the Hg adsorption significantly by poisoning the active sites on the AC surface. The AC sorbents represent the most market-ready technology for Hg capture and therefore have been investigated by both theory and experiment in this work. Future work will include similar characterization and bench-scale experiments to test the metal-based materials for the sorbent and oxidation performance.

High surface area, a microporous structure, and a high degree of surface reactivity make activated carbons versatile adsorbents, particularly effective in the adsorption of organic and inorganic pollutants from aqueous solutions. Activated Carbon Adsorption introduces the parameters and mechanisms involved in the activated carbon adsorption