Effect of competitive adsorbents on the distribution of active components and mercury adsorption performances of brominated activated carbon

Abstract

In order to explore the effect of competitive adsorbents on the distribution of mercury removal active components of activated carbon and its mercury adsorption performances, a kind of commercial activated carbon was pretreatmented by acetic acid and ammonia, then activated carbon was modified by KBr solution.These modified activated carbon samples were characterized by means of measuring iodine and methylene blue adsorption to analyze the changes of pore structure of activated carbon after pretreatment and loading of active components.The distribution of active components on activated carbon were investigated with the of SEM and EDS.Experimental studies on removal of Hg were performed in a fixed bed reactor system.The effects of different competitive adsorbents on the distribution of active components and mercury adsorption performances of brominated activated carbon were investigated.The results showed activated component Br was mainly distributed on the surface of activated carbon when the competitive adsorbent was ammonia.When acetic acid was the competitive adsorbent, activated component Br was mainly distributed inside the pores of activated carbon.Activated component Br was mainly distributed both on the surface and inside the pores when it was pretreatmented by water.The adsorption amount of mercury increased significantly when the activated carbon was loaded by Br.The location of Br on activated carbon had negligible effect on the total amount of adsorption, but it affected the rate of mercury removal at different time periods during the mercury removal process.

Keywords

• activated carbon
• modification
• mercury removal
• bromine(br)
• competitive adsorbent