New insights on mercury abatement and modeling in a full-scale municipal solid waste incineration flue gas treatment unit

[Display omitted] •Complementary modeling strategies were used to predict mercury removal from flue gas.•Mercury oxidation and adsorption are favored by lower flue gas temperatures.•Higher adsorbent injection rates are related to higher mercury removal efficiencies.•Higher filtration times favor the mercury capture from the flue gases.•Simulation results are in agreement with full-scale data. Modeling approaches are generally used to describe mercury transformations in a single step of flue gas treatment processes. However, less attention has been given to the interactions between the different process stages. Accordingly, the mercury removal performance of a full-scale solid waste incineration plant, equipped with a dry flue gas treatment line was investigated using two complementary modeling strategies: a thermochemical equilibrium approach to study the mercury transformation mechanisms and speciation in the flue gas, and a kinetic approach to describe the mercury adsorption process. The modeling observations were then compared to real-operation full-scale data. Considering the typical flue gas composition of waste incineration facilities (high concentrations of HCl compared to Hg), it was found that a process temperature decrease results in better mercury removal efficiencies, associated with a higher oxidation extent of Hg in HgCl2, and the enhancement of the sorbent capacity. Improvements can also be attained by increasing the sorbent injection rate to the process, or the solid/gas separation cycles. An empirical correlation to predict the mercury removal efficiency from the main operating parameters of dry flue gas treatment units was proposed, representing a useful tool for waste incineration facilities. The presented modeling approach proved to be suitable to evaluate the behavior of full-scale gas treatment units, and properly select the most adequate adjustments in operating parameters, in order to respect the increasingly constraining mercury emissions regulations.