A group contribution method for predicting the solubility of mercury

Mercury is a toxic and corrosive element, and understanding its partitioning within ecosystems and industrial processes is of vital importance. The solubility of mercury in normal alkanes, aromatics, water and alcohols is predicted using widely used Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state in combination with a group contribution method to estimate binary interaction parameters. The interaction parameters between elemental mercury and seven other molecular groups were determined in this work by fitting available solubility data for mercury. The solubility in the studied solvents was accurately described. This work allows the prediction of the thermodynamic behavior of elemental mercury in a wide variety of solvents, solvent mixtures, and operating conditions where experimental data are unavailable.