title: New insight into atmospheric mercury emissions from zinc smelters using mass flow analysis.
abstract: The mercury (Hg) flow paths from three zinc (Zn) smelters indicated that a large quantity of Hg, approximately 38.0-57.0% of the total Hg input, was stored as acid slag in the landfill sites. Approximately 15.0-27.1% of the Hg input was emitted into water or stored as open-dumped slags, and 3.3-14.5% of the Hg input ended in sulfuric acid. Atmospheric Hg emissions, accounting for 1.4-9.6% of the total Hg input, were from both the Zn production and waste disposal processes. Atmospheric Hg emissions from the waste disposal processes accounted for 40.6, 89.6, and 94.6% of the total atmospheric Hg emissions of the three studied smelters, respectively. The Zn production process mainly contributed to oxidized Hg (Hg2+) emissions, whereas the waste disposal process generated mostly elemental Hg (Hg0) emissions. When the emissions from these two processes are considered together, the emission proportion of the Hg2+ mass was 51, 46, and 29% in smelters A, B, and C, respectively. These results indicated that approximately 10.8±5.8 t of atmospheric Hg emissions from the waste disposal process were ignored in recent inventories. Therefore, the total atmospheric Hg emissions from the Zn industry of China should be approximately 50 t.
authors: †State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.|‡State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
authors: Qingru
authors: Q
authors: Wu
authors: †State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.|‡State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
authors: Shuxiao
authors: S
authors: Wang
authors: †State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
authors: Mulin
authors: M
authors: Hui
authors: †State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
authors: Fengyang
authors: F
authors: Wang
authors: †State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.|‡State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
authors: Lei
authors: L
authors: Zhang
authors: †State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.|‡State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
authors: Lei
authors: L
authors: Duan
authors: †State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
authors: Yao
authors: Y
authors: Luo
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D002681:China; D008628:Mercury / Q000032:analysis*; D008669:Metallurgy; D012037:Refuse Disposal; D015032:Zinc
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D008628:Mercury; D015032:Zinc