Elemental Mercury Adsorption Behaviors of Chemically Modified Activated Carbons

Abstract

In this work, the effects of different surface functional groups on the elemental mercury adsorption of porous carbons modified by chemical treatments were investigated. The surface properties of the treated carbons were observed by Boehm’s titration and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). It was found that the textural properties, including specific surface area and pore structures, slightly decreased after the treatments, while the oxygen content of the ACs was predominantly enhanced. Elemental mercury adsorption behaviors of the acidtreated ACs were found to be four or three times better than those of non-treated ACs or base-treated ACs, respectively. This result indicates that the different compositions of surface functional groups can lead to the high elemental mercury adsorption capacity of the ACs. In case of the acid-treated ACs, the RC=O/RC-O and RCOOH/RC-O showed higher values than those of other samples, indicating that there is a considerable relationship between mercury adsorption and surface functional groups on the ACs.