A new method for oxidation of gaseous, elemental mercury.

Elemental mercury (Hg) is difficult to remove from flue-gas streams using existing wet-scrubber technology, primarily because of its limited volubility in water. We have proposed and tested a concept for enhancing gaseous Hg{sup 0}removal in wet scrubber systems by altering the chemical form of the Hg{sup 0} to a water-soluble oxidized species. Recently, we have discovered a new method for injection of the oxidizing species that dramatically improves reactant utilization and at the same time gives significant nitric oxide (NO) oxidation as well. Our method uses a diluted oxidizing solution containing chloric acid and sodium chlorate (sold commercially as NOXSORB{trademark}). When this solution is injected into a gas stream containing Hg{sup 0} at about 300 F, we found that nearly 100% of the Hg{sup 0} was removed from the gas phase and was recovered in liquid samples from the test system. At the same time, approximately 80% of the added NO was also removed (oxidized). The effect of sulfur dioxide (SO{sub 2}) on this method was also investigated, and it appears to decrease slightly the amount of Hg oxidized. We are currently testing the effect of variations in oxidizing solution concentration, SO{sub 2} concentration, NO concentration, and reaction time (residence time)