In four years, coal-fired plants in the US with WFGD systems need to meet certain EPA wastewater effluent limitations related to arsenic, mercury, nitrites/nitrates and selenium. The most difficult limit to meet for almost all coal plants is the selenium limit.
The EPA has essentially made the bioreactor best available control technology.
Since selenium is a trace element in coal, it is not unusual to see the selenium, along with mercury and arsenic for that matter, to have varying concentrations with the coal that is being burned. Especially with long-term coal contracts becoming less common. With that design issue to confront, how does one choose the inlet selenium concentration to use for designing the bioreactor?
Even if you have already set your bioreactor design, and have chosen your inlet selenium concentration for design of the bioreactor, how much less would your levelized cost be, if you could reduce the inlet selenium concentration by 50%? 75%?
Equipment to run full-scale tests is available. Call for a quotation.