Selenium is an essential element for most living organisms at trace levels but becomes toxic at higher concentrations when present in its oxyanion forms. This incongruous nature of Se has generated considerable scientific and technological interest in monitoring and controlling the Se concentration in the environment. While Se can exist in a wide variety of chemical species with different oxidation states, in industrial wastewaters it is preponderantly present as selenite and selenate oxyanions. By leveraging the high sulfate concentration relative to Se present in some wastewaters, we have developed an efficient co-crystallization approach for Se-oxyanion removal with bisiminoguanidinium ligands that produce crystalline sulfate/selenate solid solutions. The results of these studies, including co-crystallization behavior, selenate removal experiments, and full separation cycles including ligand recovery and recycling, using simulated wastewater, will be discussed.

Trace-level Se-oxyanion separation by cocrystallization with chelating hydrogen-bonding ligands

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