Removing carbon dioxide from waste streams through co-generation of carbonate and/or bicarbonate minerals

1. A method of separating heavy metals and carbon dioxide from an incoming flue-gas stream, comprising:

obtaining a water-condensate containing heavy metals from the incoming flue-gas stream, thereby producing a dry flue-gas stream;

obtaining a chloride salt;

admixing the salt with water, steam, or both to produce a solution;

electrolyzing the solution to produce a hydroxide and chlorine gas;

admixing a portion of the hydroxide with the dry flue-gas stream to produce carbonate products, bicarbonate products, or a mixture of carbonate and bicarbonate products in an admixture;

separating said carbonate and/or bicarbonate products from the admixture, thereby removing carbon dioxide from the incoming flue-gas stream;

adding to the water-condensate a precipitation agent comprising a portion of the hydroxide to change the pH of the water-condensate from acidic to basic,

resulting in precipitation of the heavy metals; and

passing the water-condensate through a filtering medium.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the filtering medium comprises activated charcoal.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the condensate is gravity-fed through the filtering medium.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the condensate is actively pumped through the filtering medium.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the precipitation agent consists of the portion of the hydroxide.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the heavy metals comprise mercury and one or more heavy metals selected from a group consisting of selenium, chromium, arsenic, lead, germanium, and vanadium.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein obtaining a water-condensate from the incoming flue-gas stream comprises separating the water condensate from the incoming flue-gas stream.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the hydroxide used as the precipitation agent is formed solely from the electrolyzing step.