Revista de Chimie (Rev. Chim.), Year 2009, Volume 60, Issue 1,
Procedure concerning the Mercury Removal from Municipal Waste Combustion Flue Gases
Abstract:
Since the climatic changes are more and more attesting that humanity is causing additional man made pollution, the concept of sustainable development imposes the necessity of selecting and applying the most appropriate and available novel energy resources, including application of technologies focusing on waste incineration. Using municipal wastes for energy production implies serious environmental problems, if no appropriate prevention cleaning up technologies for the flue gases is used. Municipal waste incineration leads to formation of a flue gas that includes among other emissions, also heavy metals. One of the most harmful for human health is the emission of mercury. This paper focuses on mercury removal from waste combustion exhaust gases accomplished on a lab facility. The composition of the municipal waste combustion flue gases is physically simulated in order to correspond to real waste flue gases, by using natural gas combustion and injection of different known rates of pollutants, such as NOx, SO2, particles and heavy metals, including mercury, into the resulted gases, previous to the point where the proposed technology is applied. Several comparative tests and key-solution in order to clean up the municipal waste flue gases are presented, with results comprised in tables and diagrams. As conclusion, one draws the general idea, that the procedure proposed by the authors is efficient and acts effective for the mercury reduction in flue gases, according to the maximum admitted limits indicated by Romanian and European legislation, and determines also the simultaneous reduction of other pollutant components. Keywords: waste incineration, heavy metals, mercury, flue gas cleaning technologies, environmental pollution
