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The carbon nanotube-silver composite (Ag-CNT) is a new class of multifunctional materials with potential applications such as sensors, catalysts, biodisinfection, and sorbents. A simple method combining wet-chemistry and thermal reduction was adopted to synthesize silver on the surface of the CNT. The synthesized Ag-CNT was tested as a sorbent for the removal of elemental mercury from flue gases of coal-fired power plants and as a mercury trap for elemental mercury analysis. A complete capture of mercury by the Ag-CNT was achieved up to a capture temperature of 150 °C, similar to the temperature of flue gases in coal-fired power plants. The captured mercury could be quickly and completely released by simple heating at 330 °C, to restore its mercury adsorption capacity. Silver on the Ag-CNT was shown to be the main active component for the mercury capture via an amalgamation mechanism in contrast to simple physical adsorption on the undoped CNT . Compared to silver-coated quartz beads (Ag-beads) and gold-coated quartz beads (Au-beads), which is conventionally used as a mercury trap for mercury measurements, the Ag-CNT showed a much higher mercury capture capacity and a minimal memory effect. With the Ag-CNT as a mercury preconcentration trap, calibration results showed a satisfactory linear coefficient of ≥0.9998 between known amounts of standard mercury and their corresponding fluorescence signals of cold vapor atomic fluorescence spectrophotometry (CVAFS). The presence of SO2, NO x , CO2, or O2 showed a negligible impact on the mercury capture performance of the Ag-CNT.

A new method using nonthermal plasma to add Cl active sites on activated carbon was proposed to improve the efficiency of activated carbon (AC) for removal of mercury from flue gas. The experiments were conducted via a lab-scale dielectric barrier discharge nonthermal plasma system and a vertical adsorption reactor. The results showed that the nonthermal plasma treatment with a small amount of Cl successfully added Cl active sites on AC and greatly increased the mercury removal efficiency of AC by chemisorption in a very short treatment time. The increase in Cl concentration for AC treatment promoted the efficiency of AC. The capacity of mercury adsorption positively correlated with the content of Cl for AC treatment, which depends on the number of Cl active sites on activated carbon. The treated AC maintained a high mercury removal efficiency within a temperature range of 30-210 °C. SO and HO in flue gas inhibited the removal of mercury by AC, while HCl had a promotional effect. Scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis indicated the chemisorption of mercury was attributed to the C-Cl groups generated on AC surfaces during Cl nonthermal plasma treatment. The C-Cl groups as active sites had strong adsorption energy for mercury, which converted elemental mercury to HgCl.