A model was developed to describe the adsorption characteristic of mercury in flue gas based on one residual carbon sample and one activated carbon sample. The differential equations were established with mass balance of mercury in the gas phase and in the solid phase. Then the model was solved using a Matlab program with a Runge-Kutta process. The mercury adsorption isotherms of these two adsorbents were obtained by breakthrough column experiments. The results show that at low gas phase mercury concentrations （ 〈 0. 3 mg/ m^3）, the adsorption equilibrium of residual carbon is in accord with the case of a type Ⅱ isotherm of the Freundich theory. Whereas the data of activated carbon falls into the Langmuir relationship, it is the case of a type Ⅲ isotherm. The experimental data were fitted to the Freundlich model by Matlab software. The variances of mercury concentration are smaller than 0. 81 which implies the agreement between measurements and simulation is quite agreeable considering the wide scatter of the measurements. This model is useful for forecasting mercury removal efficiency and is helpful to the mechanism analysis of mercury adsorption on carbon-based adsorbent.
The adsorption capacity for vapor-phase elemental mercury(Hg0) of residual carbon separated from fly ash was studied in an attempt for the control of elemental mercury emissions from combustion processes. At low mercury concentrations(<200 μg/m3), unburned carbon had higher adsorption capacity than commercial activated carbon. The adsorbality of unburned carbon was also found to be source dependent. Isotherms of FS carbon(separated from fly ash of a power plant of Shishi in Fujian Province) were similar to those classified as typeⅡ. Isotherms of XJ carbon(separated from fly ash of a power plant of Jingcheng in Shanxi Province) were more like those classified as type Ⅲ. Due to the relatively low production costs, these residual carbons would likely be considerably more cost-effective for the full-scale removal of mercury from combustion flue gases than other technology.
