Partitioning of Mercury, Arsenic, Selenium, Boron, and Chloride in a Full-Scale Coal Combustion Process Equipped with Selective Catalytic Reduction, Electrostatic Precipitation, and Flue Gas Desulfurization Systems†

A full-scale field study was carried out at a 795 MWe coal-fired power plant equipped with selective catalytic reduction (SCR), an electrostatic precipitator (ESP), and wet flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems to investigate the distribution of selected trace elements (i.e., mercury, arsenic, selenium, boron, and chloride) from coal, FGD reagent slurry, makeup water to flue gas, solid byproduct, and wastewater streams. Flue gases were collected from the SCR outlet, ESP inlet, FGD inlet, and stack. Concurrent with flue gas sampling, coal, bottom ash, economizer ash, and samples from the FGD process were also collected for elemental analysis. By combining plant operation parameters, the overall material balances of selected elements were established. The removal efficiencies of As, Se, Hg, and B by the ESP unit were 88, 56, 17, and 8%, respectively. Only about 2.5% of Cl was condensed and removed from flue gas by fly ash. The FGD process removed over 90% of Cl, 77% of B, 76% of Hg, 30% of Se, and 5% of As...