The Authors

Dr Albert A. Presto is currently a Research Scientist and Laboratory Manager for the Air Quality Laboratory in the Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to his current position he was an ORISE postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Pittsburgh. His research interests include mercury removal from coal-derived flue and fuel gas, atmospheric secondary organic aerosol formation, the atmospheric processing of organic aerosol, and atmospheric radical chemistry.

Dr Evan J. Granite is a Research Group Leader at the NETL. His research has focused on mercury and carbon dioxide removal from flue and fuel gases. Dr Granite is the principal investigator for three projects on the capture of mercury, arsenic and selenium from coal-derived flue and fuel gases, and carbon dioxide separation from flue gas. His research interests are in catalysis and surface chemistry, pollution clean-up, electrochemistry and photochemistry.

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Noble Metal Catalysts for Mercury Oxidation in Utility Flue Gas

Albert A. Presto

Evan J. Granite*

National Energy Technology Laboratory, United States Department of Energy, PO Box 10940, MS 58-106, Pittsburgh, PA 15236-0940, U.S.A.
*

Platinum Metals Review

Volume 52 Issue 3 July 2008 Pages 144-154
DOI 10.1595/147106708X319256

Article Synopsis

The use of noble metals as catalysts for mercury oxidation in flue gas remains an area of active study. To date, field studies have focused on gold and palladium catalysts installed at pilot scale. In this article, we introduce bench-scale experimental results for gold, palladium and platinum catalysts tested in realistic simulated flue gas. Our initial results reveal some intriguing characteristics of catalytic mercury oxidation and provide insight for future research into this potentially important process.

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