Adsorption and Catalytic Oxidation of Gaseous Elemental Mercury in Flue Gas over MnOx/Alumina

MnOx/Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} catalysts (i.e., impregnating manganese oxide on alumina) were employed to remove elemental mercury (Hg{sup 0}) from flue gas. MnOx/Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} was found to have significant adsorption performance on capturing Hg{sup 0} in the absence of hydrogen chloride (HCl), and its favorable adsorption temperature was about 600 K. However, the catalytic oxidation of Hg{sup 0} became dominant when HCl or chlorine (Cl{sub 2}) was present in flue gas, and the removal efficiency of Hg{sup 0} was up to 90% with 20 ppm of HCl or 2 ppm of Cl{sub 2}. In addition, the catalysts with adsorbed mercury could be chemically regenerated by rinsing with HCl gas to strip off the adsorbed mercury in the form of HgCl{sub 2}. Sulfur dioxide displayed inhibition to the adsorption of Hg{sup 0} on the catalysts, but the inhibition was less to the catalytic oxidation of Hg{sup 0}, especially in the presence of Cl{sub 2}. The analysis results of XPS and pyrolysis-AAS indicated that the adsorbed mercury was mainly in the forms of mercuric oxide (Hg{sup 0}) and the weakly bonded speciation, and the ratio of them varied with the adsorption amount and manganese content on catalysts. The multifunctional performances of MnOx/Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} on the removal of Hg{sup 0} appeared to the promising in the industrial applications.