Determination of elemental selenium and pyrite-selenium in sediments

A method is described for the selective determination of concentrations of elemental selenium and pyrite-selenium in sediments. A 1 M sodium sulfite solution is used to solubilize elemental selenium and a Cr(II) solution releases selenium in pyrite. The accuracy of the methods was evaluated by using various selenium compounds. The detection limits for the elemental and pyrite-selenium procedures are 0.001 and 0.025 μg Se per gram of sediment, respectively. The relative standard deviationis < 10% for elemental selenium and < 16% for pyrite-selenium. These and other procedures were used for selenium speciation in marine and freshwater sediments.