Broken CFL's and use of nanomaterial sorbents

Wondering how to effectively capture mercury vapor for broken compact fluorescent lamps (CFL's)? If you said yes, you are in the same group as Natalie Johnson at the Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP) laboratory of Robert Hurt, Ph.D. (director of the Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation at Brown University). Natalie is the lead author on a new study reporting the lab’s latest findings, titled “Mercury Vapor Release from Broken Compact Fluorescent Lamps and In Situ Capture by New Nanomaterial Sorbents” (in press, Environmental Science and Technology).

You can read a write-up of their study in the July 2008 edition of the NIEHS Environmental Factor. Among their findings: a few of the common sorbents, such as powdered sulfur or zinc, require greater than 10 kilograms to treat vapor release for a single CFL, while small quantities of other sorbents (for instance, nano-silver and sulfur-impregnated activated carbon forms) require less than 1 gram of sorbent to capture the vapor.