High capacity mercury adsorption on freshly ozone-treated carbon surfaces

A set of carbon materials was treated by a choice of common oxidizers to investigate the mercury capture capacities at varying temperature conditions. It was found that ozone treatment dramatically increases the mercury capture capacity of carbon surfaces by factors up to 134, but the activity is easily destroyed by exposure to the atmosphere, to water vapor, or by mild heating. Freshly ozone-treated carbon surfaces are shown to oxidize iodide to iodine in solution and this ability fades with aging. FTIR analysis shows broad C-O stretch features from 950 to 1300 cm−1, which decay upon atmospheric exposure and are similar to the C-O-C asymmetric stretch features of ethylene secondary ozonide. The combined results suggest that the ultra-high mercury capture efficiency is due to a subset of labile C-O functional groups with residual oxidizing power that are likely epoxides or (epoxide-containing) secondary ozonides. The results open the possibility for in situ ozonolysis to create high-performance carbon-based Hg sorbents.