PNNL

Abstract

Environmental Significance of Group 15 and 16 Toxic Metalloids Selenium, tellurium, and arsenic are present naturally in aquatic and terrestrial environments and share many similar biogeochemical characteristics. These elements are released into the environment through the weathering and decomposition of minerals contained within a variety of lithologies, with slow release rates resulting in low environmental concentrations. Selenium, tellurium, and arsenic occur in several oxidation states as oxyanions (e.g., selenate [SeO4 2], selenite [SeO3 2], tellurate [TeO4 2], tellurite [TeO3 2, arsenate [HAsO4 2], and arsenite [HAsO3 2]) in their native elemental states [e.g., Se(0), Te(0)] or in their most reduced states as selenide (-II) and telluride (-II) or arsenide/arsines (-III). These elements can be methylated through microbial activity to form compounds such as dimethylselenide (Ehrlich, 2002; Masscheleyn, et al., 1990), dimethyltelluride (Basnayake, et al., 2001; Fleming and Alexander, 1972), and methylarsonous acid (Dopp, et al., 2004) as well as a variety of toxic methylated arsine gases (Yuan, et al., 2008). These elements are also found as analogues of sulfurous proteins such as selenocysteine and selenomethionine (Bock, et al., 1991; Jones, et al., 1979; Stolz, et al., 2006; Zannoni, et al., 2008), tellurocysteine, telluromethionine (Zannoni, et al., 2008), and the arsenic-containing amino acid, arsenomethionine (Dembitsky and Levitsky, 2004).