Copper Sulfide-Loaded Boron Nitride Nanosheets for Elemental Mercury Removal from Simulated Flue Gas
Dongjing Liu, Bin Li, Yangxian Liu, Jiang Wu
Abstract
Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), as a novel carbon-free layered material, has received extensive attention owing to its high mechanical strength and excellent chemical and thermal stability. Herein, an h-BN nanosheet is employed to capture elemental mercury (Hg0) from simulated flue gas in a fixed-bed reactor at low temperatures. The h-BN displays mercury adsorption capability with the Hg0 removal efficiency of 26.4–43.6% within 50–200 °C. CuS decoration can remarkably enhance the mercury capture performance of h-BN. The 10CuS/h-BN with a CuS loading value of 10 wt % performs the best. Complete mercury capture can be achieved over 10CuS/h-BN at 50–100 °C. The presence of NO inhibits Hg0 removal to some extent, while the presence of SO2 hardly shows any impact on Hg0 capture. The copper and polysulfide sites as well as the nanoscale lamellar structure of h-BN account for the good Hg0 capture performance of CuS-loaded h-BN.