REMOVAL OF MERCURY FROM MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE COMBUSTION GASES

The paper focuses on a technology for mercury removal from waste combustion exhaust gases, accomplished on a lab facility. In the main part an experimental facility is described, prior the risks of the mercury as well its natural and man-made sources are presented. The paper relieves the damaging effects of mercury and its chemical components. The dangerous effect is augmented by the fact that mercury is supposed to enter the food chain. Effects are attested since many years, but only recently concern has arisen, especially because waste and also coal combustion releases anthropogenic Hg emissions. The composition of the municipal waste combustion flue gases is physically simulated in the experimental facility, in order to correspond to real waste flue gases, by using natural gas combustion and injection of different known rates of pollutants, such as NOx, SO2, particles and heavy metals, including mercury, into the resulted gases, previous to the point where the proposed technology is applied. Several comparative tests and key-solution in order to clean up the municipal waste flue gases are presented, with results comprised in tables and diagrams. As conclusion, one draws the general idea, that the procedure proposed by the authors is efficient and acts effective for the mercury reduction in flue gases, according to the maximum admitted limits indicated by the Romanian and European legislation, and determines also the simultaneous reduction of other pollutant components.