Development and Evaluation of Nanoscale Sorbents for Mercury Capture from Warm Fuel Gas. Evaluation of Binary Metal Oxides for Mercury Capture

Gas Technology Institute (GTI), in collaboration with Nanoscale Materials, Inc. (NanoScale), is developing and evaluating several nanocrystalline sorbents for capture of mercury from coal gasifier (such as IGCC) warm fuel gas. The focus of this study is on the understanding of fundamental mechanism of interaction between mercury and nanocrystalline sorbents over a range of fuel gas conditions. Detailed chemical and structural analysis of the sorbents will be carried out using an array of techniques, such as XPS, SEM, XRD, N{sub 2}-adsorption, to understand the mechanism of interaction between the sorbent and mercury. The proposed nanoscale oxides have significantly higher reactivities as compared to their bulk counterparts, which is a result of high surface area, pore volume, and nanocrystalline structure. These metal oxides/sulfides will be evaluated for their mercury-sorption potential in an experimental setup equipped with state-of-the-art analyzers. Initial screening tests will be carried out in N{sub 2} atmosphere, and two selected sorbents will be evaluated in simulated fuel gas containing H{sub 2}, H{sub 2}S, Hg and other gases. The focus will be on development of sorbents suitable for higher temperature (420-640 K) applications. In this Task, several formulations of binary metal oxide-based sorbents were prepared and evaluated for capture ofmore » mercury (Hg) in simulated fuel gas (SFG) atmosphere at temperatures in the range 423-533 K. The binary metal oxides with high surface area were found to be more effective, confirming the role of sorbent surface in mercury capture. These binary sorbents were found to be effective in capturing Hg at 473 and 533 K, with Hg capture decreasing at higher temperature. Based on the desorption studies, physical adsorption was found to be the dominant capture mechanism with lower temperatures favoring capture of Hg.« less