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Plasma Induced Addition of Active Functional Groups to Biochar for Elemental Mercury Removal

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Abstract

The mercury removal capacity of biochar can be improved by plasma modification and the functional group is an important factor affecting the mercury removal. This paper examines factors such as discharge voltages, gas flow rates, chlorine concentrations and discharge times that may affect functional groups on the surface of biochar. The mercury removal performance of the tobacco stem biochar prepared under different Cl2 plasma modification conditions was investigated using a fixed bed reactor. The number of C–Cl bonds and carboxyl increased after modification and decreased in mercury removal. Longer discharge times can destroy the biochar surface and possibly cause a decrease in the number of active sites. Increasing the discharge voltage promotes the formation of C–Cl bonds and carboxyl groups. Excessive gas flow rates cause active chlorine to be carried out of the reactor quickly which reduces the formation of C–Cl. The amount of C–Cl bonds increases with increased chlorine concentration. In the modified biochar, C–Cl and carboxyl take part in the adsorption of mercury to form HgCl2 and HgO, while the unmodified biochar is mainly physically adsorbed Hg0. C–Cl is the main functional group participated in mercury removal and the carboxyl is a secondary functional group. The proportion of HgCl2 is at least 68.2% in the used modified biochar. Under optimum conditions, the initial mercury removal efficiency of modified tobacco biochar was 99.1%, and the efficiency was still 79.1% after 100 min.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (51706069) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2017JQ002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Condition Monitoring and Control for Power Plant Equipment, Ministry of Education, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, People’s Republic of China

    Huicong Zhang, Tao Wang, Zifeng Sui, Yongsheng Zhang, Baomin Sun & Wei-Ping Pan

  2. Advanced Materials Research Institute, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY, 42101, USA

    Pauline Norris

  3. ICSET Solutions, Bowling Green, KY, 42104, USA

    Wei-Ping Pan

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  1. Huicong Zhang
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  4. Yongsheng Zhang
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  6. Baomin Sun
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  7. Wei-Ping Pan
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Correspondence to Tao Wang or Yongsheng Zhang.

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Zhang, H., Wang, T., Sui, Z. et al. Plasma Induced Addition of Active Functional Groups to Biochar for Elemental Mercury Removal. Plasma Chem Plasma Process 39, 1449–1468 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11090-019-10019-4

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