The oxidizing agent (HNO3) was applied to modify bamboo char (BC) and then the samples were tested for mercury
adsorption. The adsorption tests were conducted using a fixed-bed reactor under a mixed gas (N2+O2)atmosphere at thetemperature of 120 °C–160 °C. The physical and chemical propertiesofthesampleswereinvestigatedbyvar-ioustechniques such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), ultimate analysis, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis
(BET), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The mercury
adsorption tests show that the modified BC samples have a better performance than the unmodified one, especially theืsample modified by a higher concentration of modifier. Compared with specific surface area and total pore vol-ume, oxygen functional groups on BC are supposed to play a more important role in mercury removal. The oxygen functional groups such as carboxyl, carboxylate and carbonyl groups were observed on the modi
i
ed BC. In addition,
water vapor is believed to play an active role in the modi
fi
ed BC samples. Pseudo-second-order model was applied
to af
fi
rm the fact that chemisorption worked mainly in Hg
0
capture for the HNO
3
modi
fi
ed of bamboo char