Estimating mercury emissions from a zinc smelter in relation to China's mercury control policies.
Mercury concentrations of flue gas at inlet/outlet of the flue gas cleaning, electrostatic demister, reclaiming tower, acid plant, and mercury contents in zinc concentrate and by-products were measured in a hydrometallurgical zinc smelter. The removal efficiency of flue gas cleaning, electrostatic demister, mercury reclaiming and acid plant was about 17.4%, 30.3%, 87.9% and 97.4% respectively. Flue gas cleaning and electrostatic demister captured 11.7% and 25.3% of the mercury in the zinc concentrate, respectively. The mercury reclaiming tower captured 58.3% of the mercury in the zinc concentrate. About 4.2% of the mercury in the zinc concentrate was captured by the acid plant. Consequently, only 0.8% of the mercury in the zinc concentrate was emitted to the atmosphere. The atmospheric mercury emission factor was 0.5 g t(-1) of zinc produced for the tested smelter, indicating that this process offers the potential to effectively reduce mercury emissions from zinc smelting.
Wang
S X
SX
Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, and State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Song
J X
JX
Li
G H
GH
Wu
Y
Y
Zhang
L
L
Wan
Q
Q
Streets
D G
DG
Chin
Conrad K
CK
Hao
J M
JM
D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001272:Atmosphere / Q000737:chemistry; D002681:China; D058735:Environmental Policy; D008628:Mercury / Q000032:analysis*; D008669:Metallurgy; D015032:Zinc
D000393:Air Pollutants; D008628:Mercury; D015032:Zinc