(14a) Boiler Bromide Addition - A Survey on Bromine Based Mercury Abatement from Flue Gases at Coal Combustion and Waste Incineration Plants

The keynote lecture will give an overview about mercury removal from waste incineration and coal combustion flue gases. There are two main lines of established technologies, based on the Injection of untreated or treated Activated Carbon (ACI) and/or Boiler Chemical Addition, especially in its form of Boiler Bromide Addition (BCA)

This BBA-technology was invented in 2000 by the author - still in his time with CURRENTA GmbH & Co OHG, Leverkusen, and patented by them. A specific bromine-containing compound as e.g. aqueous NaBr or CaBr2 is added to the coal or waste prior to its combustion to enhance mercury oxidation in the combustion gas during boiler passage.

Pre-combustion bromide addition is commercially applied since 2001 and has been proven as a most effective, though simple and inexpensive retrofit method to enhance dry and/or wet mercury removal from flue gases at waste incineration and coal combustion plants as a co-benefit at already existing emission control systems. In North America this technology is sublicensed as KNXTM Mercury Control Technology of Alstom Power Inc., Knoxville TN. Results from large scale tests in Germany and USA and from accompagnying bench scale laboratory tests at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Heinz Köser) will be reported, both showing that the high temperature regime > 500 °C is important for the first contact of the applied bromine compound with the mercury and sulfur dioxide containing gas.