Selenium Content in some Brands of Bottled Beer Marketed in Makurdi Town Benue State, Nigeria

This study report levels of Selenium in different brands of bottled beer marketed in Makurdi town - Benue State of Nigeria. The samples were collected from sales restaurant of the area.10mL Concentrated nitric acid (69%) was added to 25mL of the sample. The mixture was evaporated on a hot plate in a fume cupboard until the brown fumes disappears leaving white fumes.50mL of distilled water was added and this was concentrated by evaporating on hot plate to 25mL. Subsequently, 25mL of distilled water was added to make up to 50mL. This was filtered and the value selenium determined using a SHIMADZU UV 2550 UV-Visible Spectrophotometer at 520 nm. From the results, the selenium concentrations (mg/L) in these beer samples were: 0.32, 0.98, 1.56, 1.10, 0.68, 0.89, 1.90, and 1.07 for A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H respectively. These were all above the USEPA maximum contaminant level (0.05 mg/L) for selenium. Therefore, there is a clear need to improve on the quality of these bottle beer products in order to keep Se levels in the appropriate quantity to avoid negative health and environmental consequences of its higher concentration.