MONITORING OF MERCURY CONCENTRATIONS IN AIR EMITTED FROM COAL BURNING AS ENERGY SOURCE IN CEMENT INDUSTRY

Abstract

Abstract Mercury is a liquid metal with chemical formula Hg, it can be found in coal as one of its main content. In Egypt, there is a power crisis, so we search a variety of power source especially in the high consumed energy industries like cement. So we in Egypt begin in using coal and pet coke as an energy source instead of Mazeot and Natural Gas cause of its lack and abundance of coal. Coal is have a large amount of pollutant as heavy metals, sulfur content, carbon content and organic materials. In this research, I took samples to measuring the amount of mercury which produced from coal burning in cement industry. Also to make over view of the mercury impact in air around the cement plants which samples taking from the stationary sources of coal burning emission, and I mean stacks in this case. The Prevailing Wind direction in Egypt is Western-North to North, it’s traditional Wind. Sometimes, the wind direction is reversed from Eastern- South to South especially in winter. The wind direction is very important in the transferring of dust particulates which may be adsorbing much kind of metals or its compounds, of course like mercury. If there are any urban area found near the cement company and in the down wind direction.