Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
Volume 214, Issue -, Pages 822-830Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2016.04.059
Keywords
Mercury isotope signatures; Fractionation; Desulfurization seawater; Coal-fired power plant; Tracing source
Categories
Funding
- Natural Science Foundation of China [21277112]
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Seawater flue gas desulfurization (SFGD) systems are commonly used to remove acidic SO2 from the flue gas with alkaline seawater in many coastal coal-fired power plants in China. However, large amount of mercury (Hg) originated from coal is also transferred into seawater during the desulfurization (De-SO2) process. This research investigated Hg isotopes in seawater discharged from a coastal plant equipped with a SFGD system for the first time. Suspended particles of inorganic minerals, carbon residuals and sulfides are enriched in heavy Hg isotopes during the De-SO2 process. delta Hg-202 of particulate mercury (PHg) gradually decreased from -0.30 parts per thousand to -1.53 parts per thousand in study sea area as the distance from the point of discharge increased. The results revealed that physical mixing of contaminated De-SO2 seawater and uncontaminated fresh seawater caused a change in isotopic composition of PHg isotopes in the discharging area; and suggested that both De-SO2 seawater and local background contributed to PHg. The impacted sea area predicted with isotopic tracing technique was much larger than that resulted from a simple comparison of pollutant concentration. It was the first attempt to apply mercury isotopic composition signatures with two-component mixing model to trace the mercury pollution and its influence in seawater. The results could be beneficial to the coal-fired plants with SFGD systems to assess and control Hg pollution in sea area. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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