Characteristics of mercury desorption from sorbents at elevated temperatures

This study investigated the dynamic desorption characteristics of mercury during the thermal treatment of mercury-loaded sorbents at elevated temperatures under fixed-bed operations. Experiments were carried out in a 25.4 mm ID quartz bed enclosed in an electric furnace. Elemental mercury and mercuric chloride were tested with activated carbon and bauxite. The experimental results indicated that mercury desoption from sorbents was strongly affected by the desorption temperature and the mercury–sorbent pair. Elemental mercury was observed to desorb faster than mercuric chloride and activated carbon appeared to have higher desorption limits than bauxite at low temperatures. A kinetic model considering the mechanisms of surface equilibrium, pore diffusion and external mass transfer was proposed to simulate the observed desorption profiles. The model was found to describe reasonably well the experimental results.