Research on green technologies for immobilizing mercury in waste to minimize chemical footprint

This paper is devoted to the use of the principles of green chemistry in the search for technologies to reduce the chemical footprints of areas. The chemical footprint for mercury and its compounds was taken as an example to study. These chemicals belong to priority pollutants and their ever-increasing amounts in the environment have caused concern around the world, which is reflected in the adoption of the Minamata Convention. The Minamata Convention aims to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic releases of mercury and mercury compounds. This Convention is an important component of efforts to achieve sustainable, inclusive and resilient human development through SDGs, which were adopted in September 2015 and especially SDG Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. Relevancy of this work is due to the need for the adopting of a series of measures to withdraw some mercury-containing goods from the production cycle. Also, one of the most important statements of the Convention is in reference to the issue of mercury contamination when recycling mercury. An important aspect of the work described in this paper is the reduction of mercury pollution from mercury-containing waste products by the development of technology in accordance with the principles of green chemistry. These are energy-efficient and without waste -water discharge technology. The main result of this work is the fundamental research for a transformation of elemental mercury and its compounds into less dangerous forms for the human body and the environment, providing a guaranteed absence of mercury-containing waste in the atmosphere and water systems. Various conditions for reaction of the immobilization of metallic mercury in mercury-containing wastes were investigated and it was established that it proceeded best under the following conditions: 1. Reaction of metallic mercury with elementary sulfur; 2. A ball mill is used as a reactor, which ensures constant updating of the contact area of the phases; 3. For a good dispersion of mercury and for a relatively quick and complete reaction a large excess of sulfur up to 6500 % by stoichiometry (e.g. ratio of mercury:sulfur = 1:1.5 by weight) is necessary; 4. The addition of a very small amount of water also has a positive effect (hydromodulus of Solid:Liquid = 3:1 by weight).