Gas-phase mercury removal through sulfur impregnated porous carbon

Gas phase mercury removal is a vital unit operation in gas processing industries. The present work attempts to prepare a sulfur impregnated carbon at optimized experimental conditions and compares its elemental adsorption capacity with the number of commercially available carbon based adsorbents. The effect of adsorption temperature on mercury adsorption capacity has been estimated for the prepared sulfur impregnated carbon. The adsorption capacity was found to increase with increase in adsorption temperature owing to the chemisorption nature of the adsorption. The adsorption isotherms were generated at three different temperatures and were found to close adhere to the Langmuir Isotherm model. The adsorption capacity was found to increase until 140 °C, while decrease beyond, which was attributed to the softening and agglomeration of sulfur. The maximum adsorption capacity of 4325 μg/g was observed at a temperature of 140 °C. A comparison of the relative adsorption capacity of various adsorbent at 30 °C, revealed the adsorption capacity of the sulfur impregnated carbon prepared in the present work much higher than the commercially available carbons. The high adsorption capacities with simple preparation techniques favor the commercial mercury adoption process.