A Predictive Mechanism for Mercury Oxidation on Selective Catalytic Reduction Catalysts under Coal-Derived Flue Gas

Abstract

This paper introduces a predictive mechanism for elemental mercury (Hg⁰) oxidation on selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalysts in coal-fired utility gas cleaning systems, given the ammonia (NH₃)/nitric oxide (NO) ratio and concentrations of Hg⁰ and HCl at the monolith inlet, the monolith pitch and channel shape, and the SCR temperature and space velocity. A simple premise connects the established mechanism for catalytic NO reduction to the Hg⁰ oxidation behavior on SCRs: that hydrochloric acid (HCl) competes for surface sites with NH₃ and that Hg⁰ contacts these chlorinated sites either from the gas phase or as a weakly adsorbed species. This mechanism explicitly accounts for the inhibition of Hg⁰ oxidation by NH₃, so that the monolith sustains two chemically distinct regions. In the inlet region, strong NH₃ adsorption minimizes the coverage of chlorinated surface sites, so NO reduction inhibits Hg⁰ oxidation. But once NH₃ has been consumed, the Hg⁰ oxidation rate rapidly accelerates, even while the HCl concentration in the gas phase is uniform. Factors that shorten the length of the NO reduction region, such as smaller channel pitches and converting from square to circular channels, and factors that enhance surface chlorination, such as higher inlet HCl concentrations and lower NH₃/NO ratios, promote Hg⁰ oxidation.

This mechanism accurately interprets the reported tendencies for greater extents of Hg⁰ oxidation on honeycomb monoliths with smaller channel pitches and hotter temperatures and the tendency for lower extents of Hg⁰ oxidation for hotter temperatures on plate monoliths. The mechanism also depicts the inhibition of Hg⁰ oxidation by NH₃ for NH₃/NO ratios from zero to 0.9. Perhaps most important for practical applications, the mechanism reproduces the reported extents of Hg⁰ oxidation on a single catalyst for four coals that generated HCl concentrations from 8 to 241 ppm, which covers the entire range encountered in the U.S. utility industry. Similar performance is also demonstrated for full-scale SCRs with diverse coal types and operating conditions.