New Ways of Removing Mercury Safely

The dangers of both natural and man-made mercury emissions for the environment and the food chain have received much attention in recent years, resulting in stringent government regulation and unsuccessful attempts to control the impact.

In 2018, Israeli company Clairion (formerly known as MercuRemoval), with its roots in the chemistry labs of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, won that year’s Global Ideas Cleantech Open with its patented technique of removing mercury from industrial flue gas (emitted by power plants, waste incinerators, metal processing plants, etc.). Clairion’s innovative process is based on a unique liquid that captures all mercury forms in a stable complex. The process is also fully regenerative, as mercury is separated as a stable compound that is safe for disposal and the liquid is regenerated for reuse. This approach also incurs dramatically lower operational costs when compared with the commonly used alternatives. The company has tested its solution for over two years in pilots and trials conducted in cooperation with the Israel Electric Corporation and demonstrated an unprecedented success rate of 98% mercury absorption and removal from flue gas emissions. The company is now setting up an additional industrial pilot at a European lignite-based power plant.