Remediation of Selenium Contaminated Wastewater Eric D. van Hullebusch
Selenium (Se) is a naturally occurring, semi-metallic trace element (Se; atomic number 34) that was discovered 200 years ago by the Swedish chemists Jöns Jakob Berzelius (1779–1848) and Johan Gottlieb Gahn (1745–1818). Since then, many studies have been published describing its chemical properties as well as its biological importance. Selenium, if present at trace concentration levels, is an essential nutrient in the diets of all living organisms; in excess (i.e., several micro grams per liter), however, it is quite toxic (Frankenberger and Benson 1994; Winkel et al. 2012). On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the discovery of selenium, this presentation is summarising the recent advances in the field the treatment selenium laden wastewaters. Selenium has emerged as a water treatment contaminant deriving from global industrial activities (e.g. coal and mineral mining, metal smelting, oil extraction and refining, and agricultural irrigation). Selenium can bioaccumulate in aquatic ecosystems and presents a source of toxicity for many organisms, including humans (Winkel et al. 2012). However, selenium represents an extremely difficult contaminant to remove from wastewater due to its range of solubility and state of matter (e.g. chemical speciation, formation of colloidal elemental selenium particles) over different chemical oxidation states mostly influenced by microbial biotransformation reactions (Jain et al. 2017). Due to increased enforcement of selenium regulations and a better understanding of its health and environmental effects, the need to efficiently remove selenium from contaminated effluents has taken on an increased importance. Different treatment approaches may be applied for the removal of selenium from wastewater. This presentation aims at reporting the recent advances regarding different treatment technologies that could be implemented ranging E.D. van Hullebusch (&) Department of Environmental Engineering and Water Technology, IHE Delft Institue for Water Education, P.O. Box 3015, 2601 DA Delft, The Netherlands e-mail:
[email protected]
from the biological approach (i.e. by using a pure bacterial strain or by using microbial consortia) to the physico-chemical approach that is largely applied at industrial scale. These water treatment processes are aiming at removing selenium from industrial contaminated effluents (see overview in van Hullebusch 2017). In order to comply with discharge limit of treated effluent it is highly important to ensure that a final selenium concentration is within the order of lg Se L−1 in the effleuent. For instance a stringent selenium regulatory discharge limit of 5 lg Se L−1 for selenium containing wastewaters has been set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (Tan et al. 2016). The treatment of selenium contaminated effluent aims first at removing selenium in order to meet the discharge limits, but additional challenges remain to be tackled when aiming at reusing the recovered selenium for further applications (Mal et al. 2016; Tan et al. 2016).
References Frankenberger WT, Benson S (eds). Selenium in the Environment. New York: M. Dekker; 1994. Jain R, van Hullebusch ED, Lenz M, Farges F. Understanding selenium biogeochemistry in engineered ecosystems: Transformation and analytical methods. In: van Hullebusch ED, editor. Bioremediation of selenium contaminated wastewaters. Springer book; 2017. p. 33– 56. http://www.springer.com/in/book/9783319578309. Mal J, Nancharaiah YV, van Hullebusch ED, Lens PNL. Metal chalcogenide quantum dots: biotechnological synthesis and applications. RSC Adv. 2016;6(47):41477–95. Tan LC, Nancharaiah YV, van Hullebusch ED, Lens PNL. Selenium: environmental significance, pollution, and biological treatment technologies. Biotechnol Adv. 2016;34(5):886–907. van Hullebusch ED. Bioremediation of Selenium contaminated wastewater, 1st edn. Springer Book, 130 pp (2017, in press). http://www.springer.com/in/book/9783319578309. Winkel LH, Johnson CA, Lenz M, Grundl T, Leupin OX, Amini M, Charlet L. Environmental selenium research: from microscopic processes to global understanding. Environ Sci Technol. 2012;46 (2):571.
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 A. Kallel et al. (eds.), Recent Advances in Environmental Science from the Euro-Mediterranean and Surrounding Regions, Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70548-4_8
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Author Biography Eric D. van Hullebusch received his Ph.D. (Aquatic Chemistry and Microbiology) from Universite de Limoges (France) in 2002. His Ph.D. research focused on the study of the fate, mobility and environmental impact of metals (copper and aluminium) used for the chemical treatment of eutrophic lakes. From November 2002 until October 2004 he was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral fellow at Wageningen University (the Netherlands) where his research focused on the optimization of anaerobic granular sludge reactors by studying the speciation, bioavailability and dosing strategies of trace metals. In November 2004 he became assistant professor at Université de Limoges (France) and in September 2005, he was appointed as associate professor in biogeochemistry of engineered ecosystems at Université Paris-Est (France). In March 2012, Eric van Hullebusch obtained his Habilitation qualification in Environmental Sciences from Université Paris-Est. The title of his Habilitation thesis is “Biofilms in the environment: from anaerobic wastewater treatment to material bioweathering”. In September 2016, he joined IHE Delft as chair professor in Environmental Science and Technology. Eric van Hullebusch has a significant experience in teaching at MSc level mainly in environmental chemistry, biogeochemistry, environmental geochemistry, environmental microbiology, biological wastewater treatment and biological organic waste treatment.
E.D. van Hullebusch Before joining IHE Delft, his research activities mainly focused on the three following topics: Study of metals and metalloids biogeochemistry in engineered ecosystems (e.g. bioreactors) mainly dedicated to wastewater treatment for pollution control and resource recovery, Investigation of the role of living organisms on the weathering of materials and minerals (concrete materials, metal sulfides and wastes such as metallurgical wastes for resource recovery, ….), Soil remediation (advanced oxidation processes, combination of soil washing and bioremediation). Eric van Hullebusch has been involved in several international projects. From September 2010 until August 2014 he was coordinator of the IRSES FP7 EU project MINPOLLCONTROL (Mining wastes bio/weathering, pollution control and monitoring) involving IHE Delft and two Brazilian partners. Also, he has been lately involved in the coordination of 2 joint Ph.D. programmes. The Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate ETeCoS3 (The Environmental Technologies for Contaminated Solids, Soils and Sediments) and the Marie Sklodowska-Curie—ITN European Joint Doctorate ABWET (Advanced Biological Waste-to-Energy Technologies). Eric van Hullebusch has published about 170 peer-reviewed papers since 2002 (h-index 29 and about 2700 citations—Source Scopus). His main current research interests are focusing on developing ecotechnologies together with the members of his chair group: 1. Natural systems for the treatment of, and resource recovery from, domestic waste water, with an emphasis on nutrient cycles and related biological processes; 2. Solid organic waste management and resource recovery (bioenergy, biochar, compost, gas treatment); 3. Solid hazardous waste management and resource recovery (critical elements selective recovery).
