Removal of Selenates or Related Selenium Compounds from Water by Decorated Metal-Organic Framework materials

Nuclear utilities are challenged with the removal of several radionuclides that significantly contribute to or drive dose, radioactive effluents, radioactive waste generation rates, and environmental effluent waste concerns. Analogously, fossil based generation facilities are challenged by the regulatory discharge requirements for wastewater from flue gas desulfurization and from scrubber, fireside washing and boiler cleaning operations as well as by the mandates for groundwater remediation due to coal pile run-off and ash pond leachates. EPRI’s Nuclear Program developed and is testing novel cleanup media for aqueous radiocobalt using sequestration chemistry rather than typical ion exchange binding. This resin, trademarked as CoSeq, significantly improves upon soluble cobalt uptake capacity and selectivity in the presence of competing ionic impurities/additives while substantially lowering equilibrium cobalt leakage from the resin bed. Work here will support a project to assess the technical feasibility of applying similar chemical sequestration algorithms for uptake of other troublesome inorganic species from water used in connection with power plants.