Real-Time Monitoring of Selenium Species in Power Plant Wastewaters via Optical Spectroscopy

Thermoelectric power plants, including fossil fueled and nuclear fueled plants, will continue to play the largest role in the future energy matrix of the US for the foreseeable future- However, production of thermoelectric power results in one of the largest withdrawals of water in the US and worldwide-Part of the associated water usage results in water effluents containing potentially harmful byproducts of processing or combusting the fuel- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released pending regulations on these effluents with which power plants will need to demonstrate compliance- Therefore plants will need a means to measure the composition of their wastewaters accurately, and this translates to the need for an accurate, rapid, and automated wastewater analyzer for environmental contaminants, among them the element selenium-Such an analyzer is not commercially available today- Two technologies will be developed for measuring trace amounts of selenium in wastewaters: a technology that concentrates the selenium to make it easier to analyze, and a second technology based on optical spectroscopy to measure the amount of selenium in an automated and inexpensive apparatus- Both technologies will be combined in the final product- Eventually, the final product will also be able to measure other regulated water contaminants such as arsenic and mercury-