Dow Water Solutions

DOWEX Resins for Separation of Mercury from Liquid Media

Mercury - Hg Mercury is found in both anionic and cationic forms as well as organic mercury compounds.

Applications

Selective Hg Removal: Dow is in the process of developing a series of media for selective removal of mercury. Our initial offering is XUS-43604, a thiol type resin containing the -SH functional group. This product has been shown to reduce mercury levels to <1 ppt (parts per trillion) in some applications. Dow is interested in generating more lab and pilot test data on these products so if you would like to be involved, please Contact Us via the link on this page. Please include information about your particular mercury removal application.

Methyl Mercury Removal: Mercury forms organic complexes that are not ionic. Options are to oxidize the mercury to an ionic form for removal as described above or use an adsorbent. DOWEX™ OPTIPORE™ L493 adsorbent can be used to capture a wide variety of unchanged molecules from liquid and vapor streams. For more information see Organics Removal from Process Water.

Chloro-Alkali Operations: One common mercury application challenge comes from the manufacture of chlorine and caustic via mercury cathode cells. Mercury levels in the effluent from chloralkali plants must be in the ppb range. Wastewater from such an operation is neutralized, oxidized to remove colloidal mercury and then polished with an anion exchange resin to remove anionic mercury complexes. The product of choice is a strong base anion exchange resin like DOWEX 21K XLT ion exchange resins, or for streams that have a high organic content and are prone to surface fouling, DOWEX MARATHON™ MSA resin is recommended.

Mercury, when present as Hg⁺ or HgCl₂-, can be removed with DOWEX G-26 (H), a strong acid cation exchange resin.

Product	Description	Type	Matrix	Total Exchange Capacity* eq/l (kgr/ft3)	Available Forms
XUS-43604.00	Uniform particle size, thiol functionalized resin for selective capture of mercury.	Chelating Resin	Styrene-DVB, Macroporous	0.7	Cl-
DOWEX OPTIPORE L493	A general purpose polymeric adsorbent for the concentration of a wide variety of chlorinated and organic solvents from water.	Adsorbent	Styrene-DVB, Macroporous
DOWEX 21K XLT	Uniform particle size, high capacity, strong base anion exchange resin for mineral processing applications.	Type I Strong Base Anion	Styrene-DVB, Gel	1.4	Cl-
DOWEX MARATHON MSA	Uniform particle size, high capacity, macroporous strong base anion exchange resin for water demineralization applications.	Type I Strong Base Anion	Styrene-DVB, Macroporous	1.1 (24.0)	Cl-
DOWEX G-26 (H)	Uniform particle size strong acid cation exchange resin for specialty demineralization and catalyst applications.	Strong Acid Cation	Styrene-DVB, Gel	2.0	H+