Use of modified carbon sorbents in extracting mercury from technogenic raw materials

Heavy metal pollution of the environment is an increasingly important issue because heavy metals of both natural and technogenic origin are highly toxic and non-degradable substances. Extracting heavy metals from industrial solutions using carbon sorbents is one of the promising and effective methods providing complete extraction of the pollutants. The paper describes the research on the potential use of the modified activated carbon obtained from brown coal as a sorbent for mercury extraction. The adsorption capacity of the modified ABG (activated brown granular) sorbent has been defined for a solution with the initial ion concentration of 5-15 mg/dm(3) in static conditions. Isotherms have been plotted for the initial (ABG) and modified (ABG-M) sorbents. The maximum adsorption capacity of ABG-M has been defined as 21.5 mg/g, which is 1.6 times that of ABG. The use of modified carbon sorbents in extracting heavy metals from waste waters and technogenic formations helps to achieve a high degree of purification without any additional chemical agents polluting the environment.