Health concerns surrounding the consumption of mercury in foods have led to recent legislation aimed at reducing the atmospheric release of mercury. Current research in this area is aimed at utilizing on-site capture technologies, either wet scrubbers or particulate control devices, and optimizing these technologies to also collect mercury. In order to do this, the speciation of mercury in the flue gas environment must be understood. Using computational chemistry, two rate expressions were derived that together represent a possible mercury pathway in the flue gas environment. To develop these rate expressions, optimal computational levels of theory were found in addition to the identification of the transition state for each reaction. This work will feed into a larger spectrum of research on the behavior of mercury in flue gasses in order to more effectively model its behavior.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Bell, Darren T.

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• 06D474M

Advisor

• Wilcox, Jennifer L.

Year

• 2006

Date created

• 2006-01-01

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Chemical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Last modified

• 2021-10-11