The growing world population is contributing to the increasing amounts of waste and a significant increase in energy demand. Therefore, coal will increasingly be replaced by refuse-derived fuel (RDF), which produced from municipal solid waste. use such poses many difficulties because its heterogeneity high mercury emission. One method stabilize properties RDF reduce content thermal pretreatment...

Bacteria resistant to methylmercury utilize two enzymes (MerA and MerB) to degrade methylmercury to the less toxic elemental mercury. The crucial step is the cleavage of the carbon-mercury bond of methylmercury by the organomercurial lyase (MerB). In this study, we determined high resolution crystal structures of MerB in both the free (1.76-A resolution) and mercury-bound (1.64-A resolution) st...

The purpose of this paper is to examine and report on studies that relate mercury levels in human tissues to the presence of dental amalgams, giving special attention to autopsy studies. Until recently, there have been few published studies examining the relationship between dental amalgams and tissue mercury levels. Improved and highly sensitive tissue analysis techniques have made it possible...

An extensive series of studies was performed at the Energy & Environmental Research Center with mercury (Hgo) sorbents in a thin bed using combinations of various flue gas constituents. This work determined that all the sorbents exhibited breakthrough in about I hour in the full flue gas mixture, and the mercury emitted after breakthrough is an oxidized mercury species. Trapping of the oxidized...

The impact of mercury (Hg) on human and ecological health has been known for decades. Although a treaty signed in 2013 by 147 nations regulates future large-scale mercury emissions, legacy Hg contamination exists worldwide and small-scale releases will continue. The fate of elemental mercury, Hg(0), lost to the subsurface and its potential chemical transformation that can lead to changes in spe...

The enormous increase in practically unregulated mining in Madre de Dios Peru is leading to massive release of liquid elemental mercury to the environment. Rapidly increasing global prices for gold are causing a massive upsurge in artisanal mining in the Peruvian Amazon, considered to be one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. This study identifies the current levels of mercury in the ...

The largest source of mercury to the atmosphere in the world is the burning of fossil fuels, primarily coal. Electrical power plants are estimated to account for about 25% of the global anthropogenic mercury emissions to the atmosphere and industrial and residential heating for another 20% [1]. According to the European Environmental Agency (EEA), Spain is the third country among EU27 in mercur...

Despite measures to educate the public about the dangers of elemental mercury, spills continue to occur in homes, schools, health care facilities, and other settings, endangering the public's health and requiring costly cleanup. Mercury is most efficiently absorbed by the lungs, and exposure to high levels of mercury vapor after a release can cause cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, nause...

The production of the neurotoxic methylmercury in the environment is partly controlled by the bioavailability of inorganic divalent mercury (Hg(II)) to anaerobic bacteria that methylate Hg(II). In sediment porewater, Hg(II) associates with sulfides and natural organic matter to form chemical species that include organic-coated mercury sulfide nanoparticles as reaction intermediates of heterogen...