Grantee Research Project Results
2000 Progress Report: A Low-Cost, High-Temperature Mercury Sorbent for Coal-Fired Power Plants
EPA Contract Number: 68D01075Title: A Low-Cost, High-Temperature Mercury Sorbent for Coal-Fired Power Plants
Investigators: Nelson, Sid
Small Business: Sorbent Technologies Corporation
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: II
Project Period: September 1, 2001 through September 1, 2003
Project Period Covered by this Report: September 1, 1999 through September 1, 2000
Project Amount: $225,000
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) - Phase II (2001) Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air Quality and Air Toxics , SBIR - Air Pollution , Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
Description:
The health and environmental effects of trace mercury emissions from coal combustion are increasingly under scrutiny. In response to a recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Information Collection Request, utilities currently are sampling their coal for mercury and many are sampling their stacks. By the end of the year 2000, the Agency is to decide whether to require mercury reductions from coal-fired power plants. The Phase I objective is to learn how to effectively prepare and use the new mercury sorbents to establish the technology's feasibility, so that a pilot- or full-scale Phase II demonstration can be carried out successfully at a power plant site later.Unfortunately, if utilities must reduce mercury, it could be very expensive. As the Executive Summary of the EPA's recent Report to Congress on Hazardous Air Pollutants from Utilities stated:
"Regarding potential methods for reducing mercury emissions, the EPA has not identified any demonstrated add-on control technologies currently in use in the United States that effectively remove mercury from utility emissions."
However, an inexpensive material was discovered recently that appears to effectively capture elemental mercury from simulated coal-fired flue gases when injected into ductwork at modest rates. When the powdered sorbent is then removed by the electrostatic precipitator, the mercury is separated from the gas stream as well. Importantly, the new sorbents appear to be effective at high temperatures (300 F to 400 F). This means that expensive gas-cooling or fabric-filter retrofits are not required and that fly ash sales can remain unaffected. Consequently, preliminary estimates of their cost effectiveness suggest that costs are one-tenth of those estimated by the EPA for other technologies.
An existing duct-injection test system will be used in Phase I to parametrically examine the new sorbent's performance, rather than just a simple fixed-bed system, which would not accurately simulate actual sorbent conditions. This project's ambitious performance and cost goals are the demonstration of in-duct elemental mercury removal of 80 percent from a simulated, representative flue gas at 350 F with an estimated cost of less than $3,000 per-lb-of-Hg removed, one-tenth that of current technologies.
Supplemental Keywords:
small business, SBIR, air emissions, mercury removal, engineering, chemistry, EPA., RFA, Scientific Discipline, Air, Toxics, Waste, particulate matter, Chemical Engineering, air toxics, Environmental Chemistry, HAPS, VOCs, Hazardous Waste, exploratory air chemistry and physics, Incineration/Combustion, Engineering, Hazardous, 33/50, Engineering, Chemistry, & Physics, Environmental Engineering, Nox, particulates, coal fired utility boiler , mercury, pollution control technologies, simulated coal combustion, Sulfur dioxide, powdered activated carbon (PAC), PAC, emissions, sorbents, combustion, mercury & mercury compounds, Mercury Compounds, mercury recovery, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), coal combustion, coal fired power plants, air emissions, removalProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractSBIR Phase I:
A Low-Cost, High-Temperature Mercury Sorbent for Coal-Fired Power Plants | 2001 Progress Report | Final ReportThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.