Novel carbon -based sorbents for elemental mercury removal from gas streams: A review

Mercury emission, derived from natural gas exploitation, metal sintering, coal gasi fication and combustion, gold mining, etc., has posed great threaten to the environment and human beings due to its volatility, mobility, toxicity, and bioaccumulation in ecosystem and food chains. Adsorption using carbon materials is regarded as one of the most promising techniques for mercury emission control due to its simple equipment, convenient operation, high removing e fficacy, less secondary pollution, etc. This review comments the new research pro- gress of elemental mercury capture by novel carbon -based sorbents in recent five years, particularly emerging carbon materials, such as bio-chars, graphene and graphene oxide, carbon nanotubes and nano fibers, carbon spheres, carbon aerogels, metal -organic frameworks, and graphitic carbon nitrides. The mercury removal per- formances and reaction mechanisms of diverse carbon -based sorbents along with their merits and drawbacks are fully discussed, which aims to strengthen the understanding of this emerging research topic and outline future research directions for the development of sustainable, recyclable, and cost-e ffective carbon -based mercury sorbents.