Poultry manure as raw material for mercury adsorbents in gas applications

Abstract

Primary Audience: Agricultural Engineers, Poultry Managers, Researchers SUMMARYThe quantity of poultry manure generated each year is large, and technologies that take advantage of the material should be explored. At the same time, increased emphasis on the reduction of mercury emissions from coal-fired electric power plants has resulted in environmental regulations that may, in the future, require application of activated carbons as mercury sorbents. The sorbents could be injected into the flue gas stream, where they could adsorb the mercury. The sorbents (now containing mercury) would be removed via filtration or other means from the flue gas. Our preliminary work has demonstrated that activated carbon made from poultry manure can adsorb mercury from air with good efficiency. In laboratory experiments, an activated carbon made from turkey cake manure removed the majority of elemental mercury from a hot air stream. Other activated carbons made from chicken and turkey litter manure were also efficient. In general, unwashed activated carbons made from poultry manure were more efficient in removing mercury than their acid-washed counterparts. The results suggest that the adsorption of mercury was mainly due to chemisorption on the surface of the carbon. Other potential uses for the activated carbons are the removal of mercury from air and natural gas.

Feasibility of mercury removal from simulated flue gas by activated chars made from poultry manures

“…The concentration of mercury in the gas was determined by gold amalgamation and atomic fluorescence detection (Amalgamation Control Module and Model III Atomic Fluorescence Spectrophotometer; Brooks Rand, Seattle, WA) as previously described (Klasson et al, 2009). …”

“…The studies were conducted using a column packed with 20 mg of activated char (or carbon) mixed with 10 g of purified sand as previously described (Klasson et al, 2009). The column was placed in an oven (1330 GM Gravity Oven, VWR International, West Chester, PA), which was kept at 150 C for the entire experiment.…”

“…Specific surfaces of the carbons/chars were measured as previously described (Klasson et al, 2009) and the differential pore volume distribution was calculated using the quenched solid density functional theory (Neimark et al, 2009) from the data provided by the Nova 2000 software (AS1 Win, Version 2.01, October 13, 2008; Quantachrome Instruments, Boynton Beach, FL).…”

“…Activated carbons or chars made from poultry manure have shown unique properties, such as capability of removing metal ions from laboratory-prepared aqueous solutions Marshall, 2005a, 2008). Preliminary experiments have also suggested that poultry manure-based chars may also be suitable for mercury uptake from gas (Cui et al, 2007;Klasson et al, 2005Klasson et al, , 2009. A possibility that these chars may be suitable for mercury uptake is that poultry manure contains 0.15e0.6% sulfur on a wet basis (Collins et al, 1999) and it has been suggested that high sulfur content in materials, from which activated carbons are made, may be advantageous if mercury uptake is desired (His et al, 1998).…”

“…in 2007S. in (USDA, 2008, it is estimated that we generate 15.7 million metric tons of poultry litter and 5.1 million metric tons of poultry cake (Klasson et al, 2009). Activated carbons or chars made from poultry manure have shown unique properties, such as capability of removing metal ions from laboratory-prepared aqueous solutions Marshall, 2005a, 2008).…”