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Selenium Removal from Wastewater

Sorbster® Se-1 is a highly functionized, enriched, alumina media that covalently bonds soluble selenium and other trace contaminants to its active sites.
It is suitable for use across a broad range of water qualities, and is optimized for removal of Selenium from wastewater

The MCLG for selenium is 0.05 mg/L, or 50 ppb
Sorbster® Se-1 is specifically designed to remove multiple species:

Oxyanions – selenite (SeO₃) & selenate (SeO₄)
Organic selenocyanate (SeCN)
Water quality is a variable in selenium treatment
Sorbster® has on-going R&D on selenium species vs. competing
anions, solubility of complexes, media composition, pretreatments

Selenium’s Unique Challenge

More than any other contaminant, selenium can be tricky to remove from your wastewater.

Selenate's High Solubility: Most selenium in wastewater exists as selenate, a soluble form that doesn't easily bind to common treatment materials like flocculants or ion-exchange resins.
Slow Reduction Kinetics: To make selenium insoluble, it needs to be reduced to elemental selenium. However, this reduction process is slow, especially for selenate.
Interference from Competing Ions: The wastewater contains high levels of sulfate, which is chemically similar to selenate, and nitrates. Microbes preferentially reduce nitrates over selenates, meaning nitrates must be dealt with first, slowing down selenium removal.
Variable Wastewater Composition: The wastewater source and process creates significant variability in the wastewater's composition and selenium speciation (the relative amounts of selenate and selenite).
Limited Treatment Effectiveness: Standard precipitation and adsorption technologies are less effective for soluble selenate. Specialized biological processes are often required but can be slow, complex, and require large reactor volumes.

Sorbster’s Selenium Advantage

Our media:

Chemically bonds to selenium
Removes both selenite and selenate
Works in the presence of sulfates

Features and Benefits

Sorbster® Media Effectively removes soluble selenite, selenate, and selenocyanate in a wide range of process streams

• Can lower selenium concentrations to less that 1ppb in a single pass

• Produces no ancillary water streams that require additional treatment, handling or disposal

• Media passes the EPA TCLP test and allows for nonhazardous disposal options, reducing total cost to treat

• Requires fewer change-outs than competing media, maximizing ROI

• Active and diverse chemistry allows it to selectively capture and chemisorb selenium in both the oxyanion and cation forms, eliminating expensive process steps required by some competitive solutions

• Does not support bacterial growth

• May be used as a polishing media to reach ultra-lowlevel concentrations where existing solutions cannot perform to new permits

• Also removes Molybdenum, Mercury, Arsenic, Selenite, Copper, Fluoride, Selenate, Cadmium, Thallium, Silica, Tin, Barium, Hexavalent Chromium, Antimony, Cobalt, Vanadium, Lead, Zinc, Boron, Nickle and Cyanide