A high efficiency and high capacity mercury adsorbent based on elemental selenium loaded SiO2 and its application in coal-fired flue gas

•The millimeter-grade Se/SiO2 adsorbent can be used as a filler in a fixed bed reactor.•The saturated adsorption capacity of mercury is up to 101.04 mg/g.•HgSe is the main product of mercury removal from adsorbent under flue gas conditions.•The carrier of Se/SiO2 is soluble SiO2, and high purity of HgSe can be recovered. Massive Hg emissions from coal-fired units cause serious environmental pollution and result in a substantial waste of Hg resources. In this study, the prepared millimeter-grade Se/SiO2 adsorbent was applied as a filler to adsorb mercury in a fixed-bed reactor to obtain the high value-added product HgSe, which solved the problem of short contact time and secondary pollution caused by the traditional injection mercury removal adsorbents. Experimental Hg removal showed that the 25 % Se-loaded adsorbent exhibited excellent Hg removal performance at 150 °C, with a saturation adsorption capacity of mercury was as high as 101.04 mg/g, nearly 300 times that of commercial activated carbons. Additionally, the influence of the flue gas composition on the Hg removal performance of Se/SiO2 was studied. The results showed that O2, NO, and HCl increased the efficiency of Hg removal and SO2 and SO3 had trivial impact on the Hg removal performance. The Hg temperature-programmed desorption test results showed that the adsorbed Hg appeared predominantly as HgSe on the sample surface. DFT calculations verified that Se loading improved Hg removal performance and defined the adsorption mechanism. Moreover, the prepared Se/SiO2 adsorbent carrier was soluble SiO2, which provided a good condition for the subsequent high-purity collection of HgSe. Finally, the technological process of Hg removal via Se-loaded adsorbents and the recovery of HgSe were proposed, which could offer a new way to achieve the resource utilization of Hg.