METHOD OF DECONTAMINATION OF MERCURY-CONTAINING WASTES Russian patent published in 2004 - IPC

FIELD: environment control technologies; processing mercury- containing wastes, for example, luminous lamps, mercury-filled thermometers, barometers, vacuum meters and other devices containing mercury in glass bubbles. SUBSTANCE: proposed method includes joint grinding of wastes together with grinding medium and sulfur for bonding metallic mercury. Use is additionally made of aqueous solutions of ferric chloride (3), spent lye and sodium hydroxide; components are introduced in the following sequence: mercury-containing wastes are introduced into mixture of solution of ferric chloride (3) with ground medium in form of rubble; wastes are crushed, ground and mixture of elementary sulfur together with spent lye and sodium hydroxide solution is added at the following relationship (per 0.1 mass-% of mercury in wastes), mass-%: 10-% ferric chloride solution, 2.0-3.0; elementary sulfur, 0.4-0.6; spent lye, 0.1-0.2; 10-% sodium hydroxide solution, 1.5=2.5. EFFECT: enhanced efficiency due to preliminary reduction of mercury mobility and increased wettability due to addition of sulfur. 1 tbl