Numerical approach to minimize mercury contamination by geometric and parametric optimization

Due to high vapour pressure at ambient conditions, exposed mercury contributes significant vapour concentration in working atmosphere. Ventilation is a conventional, cheap and very effective method to bring down the concentration of hazardous materials like mercury vapour below permissible limit. In this work a numerical model was developed to obtain intuitive understandings of the spatial distribution of mercury vapors from an exposed surface. The model was validated with experimental data generated using a precinct ventilation system with 8.14% absolute average error. a Validated model was used to study the effect of air flow rate (100–1200 LPM) and impact of architectural design of the containment for fixed exposed mercury surfaceon the final (diluted) mercury concentration. Comparative analysis shows that modification in structural design offers a reduced volume averaged exit mercury concentration and also the reduced peak mercury concentration(C(peak)) in the computational domain. Computational approach outlined in this work can be used to estimate spatial variation of mercury vapor concentration and to locate and quantify regions of high local concentration of mercury in various geometries.