Mercury Reduction Market Expanding Outside the U.S.

The market for reducing mercury exhausted from power plants, incinerators and other industrial emitters will exceed $1 billion in the U.S. next year.  At the same time, the market is starting to take off in other countries.  This is the prediction in Mercury Air Reduction Market published by the McIlvaine Company. 

The U.S. market has several components. One is sorbents which are injected into the ductwork in air pollution systems. Another component is chemicals such as halogens, which convert mercury to the soluble form.  A third segment involves hardware to provide the actual separation of the mercury from the gas stream. 

In mid April, a U.S. district court refused to block the air toxic rules already implemented by the U.S. EPA. China is moving ahead with a dozen pilot programs and a longer-range goal of reducing mercury by 70 percent. Some sources such as incinerators have been equipped with mercury control equipment in most countries for a number of years.

The United Nations has embarked on a major initiative to achieve worldwide mercury reduction. Some technologies achieve only partial removal but are inexpensive. So, if major emitters such as India were to implement these technologies, the world reduction would be substantial.

The advances in technology are rapid. The cost of removing mercury has been reduced by nearly an order of magnitude over the last two decades. The cost of sorbents has been reduced while the efficiency per pound of sorbent has been increased. The combination of chemicals to change mercury to a soluble compound and scrubbers to separate the soluble compounds is proving to be more efficient than originally been hoped. Since most coal-fired power plants around the world are installing scrubbers for SO₂ removal, the cost for the mercury removal is quite low.

The McIlvaine Company is serving the purchasers of mercury control systems with a free website.

For more information on the markets, click on Mercury Air Reduction Market.