An assessment of acid wash and bioleaching pre-treating options to remove mercury from coal

The United States Environmental Protection Agency is expected to begin regulating the release of vapor-phase mercury from coal-fired power plants in the year 2007. Chemical pre-treatment methods were investigated for mercury removal effectiveness from pulverized low-sulfur North Dakota lignite coal. More limited results were obtained for a pulverized high-sulfur Blacksville bituminous coal. A two-step acid wash treatment showed removal rates of 60–90%, compared to one-step treatments with concentrated HCl, which yielded removals of 30–38%. Removal effectiveness is similar for first step solvents of water, pH 5.0 acid, or pH 2.0 acid followed by concentrated HCl as the second step solvent, and is independent of first step incubation time. Neither of two bacterial strains, Thiobacillus ferrooxidans and T. thiooxidans, was found effective for mercury removal.