The present research work demonstrates the potential of porous carbon (PC) fabricated through facile one-step method from calcium alginate biomass as a low cost and efficient scavenger for gas phase elemental mercury (Hg°) from natural gas. Performance of the prepared PC at different temperatures (500, 700 and 900 °C) using fixed-bed setup mimicking the plant conditions revealed that PC-900 demonstrated to be a promising adsorbent for removing Hg°. The excellent sorption performance of PC-900 could be attributed to its BET surface area and large pore volume which rendered easy sorption of Hg° into the porous network. The equilibrium adsorption results further confirmed that sorption capacity decreased from 1236 to 1089 μg/g with increase in temperature from 30 to 50 °C, indicating exothermic nature of adsorption. The sorption isotherms well fitted the Langmuir model, with maximum adsorption capacity of 1236 μg/g at 30 °C. A comparison of the sorption capability of bio-derived PC-900 with sulfur impregnated carbon (SIC) at 50 °C affirmed that the uptake capacity of PC-900 (1089.6 μg/g) was much higher than SIC (887.2 μg/g). These results reveal the promising solutions offered by alginate pyrolyzed PC for scavenging Hg° from natural gas, by not only reducing the environmental problems associated with gaseous mercury emissions but also by making the process more economical.

本研究工作证明了通过藻酸钙生物质通过简便的一步法制造的多孔碳（PC）的潜力，该天然气可作为天然气中气相元素汞（Hg°）的低成本高效清除剂。使用模拟植物条件的固定床设置，在不同温度（500、700和900°C）下制备的PC的性能表明，PC-900被证明是去除Hg°的有前途的吸附剂。PC-900优异的吸附性能归因于其BET表面积和大孔体积，使Hg°易于吸附到多孔网络中。平衡吸附结果进一步证实，随着温度从30升高到50°C，吸附容量从1236降低到1089μg/ g，表明吸附的放热性质。吸附等温线非常适合Langmuir模型，在30°C下的最大吸附容量为1236μg/ g。在50°C下对生物衍生PC-900与硫浸渍碳（SIC）的吸附能力进行比较，证实PC-900（1089.6μg/ g）的吸收能力远高于SIC（887.2μg/ g） 。这些结果表明，藻酸盐热解PC提供的从天然气中清除Hg°的有前途的解决方案，不仅可以减少与气态汞排放有关的环境问题，而且还可以使工艺更经济。