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Home ›› About Speciation ›› Speciation News

Arsenic-free water still a pipedream

(29.07.2005)

Decontamination plants installed at wells throughout West Bengal are failing to reduce arsenic in local drinking water to safe levels,
according to a report published this month in Environmental Science & Technology.

Chakraborti's team monitored 18 of 2,000 decontamination plants made by 11 different manufacturers in India, Germany and the United States, and installed at wells in West Bengal. According to their results, none of them reduced arsenic to levels the World Health Organization considers safe. The findings come as a blow to efforts to address what has been called the worst mass poisoning in history, in which millions of people were exposed to dangerous or fatal levels of arsenic in their water.

Eighty per cent of local villagers had abnormal levels of arsenic in their urine.

Chakraborti believes that efforts should now focus on harnessing and purifying surface water. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which initiated and funded the original well-drilling programme, supports the approach. “We’re really pushing for rainwater harvesting,” says UNICEF emergencies coordinator Paula Plaza. However, there are now plans to test arsenic removal plants more thoroughly before they are licensed for use. A Canadian company called the Ontario Center for Environmental Technology Advancement is collaborating with the Bangladeshi government to develop performance standards for these systems.

The original study

M. Amir Hossain, Mrinal Kumar Sengupta, S. Ahamed, M.M. Rahman, D. Mondal, D. Lodh, B. Das, B. Nayak, B.K. Roy, A. Mukherjee, D. Chakraborti, Ineffectiveness and Poor Reliability of Arsenic Removal Plants in West Bengal, India, Environ. Sci. Technol., 39/11 (2005) 4300-4306

Related Studies

R. Bhattacharyya, D. Chatterjee, G. Jacks, Use of "red earth"-low cost remedial option for arsenic removal, J. Phys. IV, 107 (2003) 177. DOI: 10.1051/jp4:20030271

L.C. Roberts, S.J. Hug, T. Ruettimann, M. Billah, A.W. Khan, M.T. Rahman, Arsenic removal with iron(II) and iron(III) waters with high silicate and phosphate concentrations, Environ. Sci. Technol., 38 (2004) 307-315. DOI: 10.1021/es0343205

Michael Berg, Samuel Luzi, Walter Giger, Pham Thi Kim Trang, Pham Hung Viet,
Doris Stüben, Response to Comment on "Arsenic Removal from Groundwater by Household Sand Filters: Comparative Field Study, Model Calculations, and Health Benefits", Environ. Sci. Technol., 38 (2004) 1053-1053. DOI: 10.1021/es062798d

Sunbaek Bang, George P. Korfiatis, Xiaoguang Meng, Removal of arsenic from water by zero-valent iron, J. Hazard. Mater., 121/1-3 (2005) 61-67. DOI:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2005.01.030

Véronique Lenoble, Christelle Laclautre, Véronique Deluchat, Bernard
Serpaud, Jean-Claude Bollinger, Arsenic removal by adsorption on iron(III) phosphate, J. Hazard. Mater., 123/1-3 (2005) 262-268. DOI:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2005.04.005

Sunbaek Bang, Manish Patel, Lee Lippincott, Xiaoguang Meng, Removal of arsenic from groundwater by granular titanium dioxide adsorbent, Chemosphere, 60/3 (2005) 389-397. DOI:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2004.12.008

S. Sarkar, A. Gupta, R.K. Biswas, A.K. Deb, J.E. Greenleaf, A.K. SenGupta, Well-head arsenic removal units in remote villages of Indian, Water Research, 39/10 (2005) 2196-2206. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2005.04.002

Dhananjay Mishra, James Farrell, Evaluation of Mixed Valent Iron Oxides as Reactive Adsorbents for Arsenic Removal, Environ. Sci. Technol., 39/24 (2005) 9689-9694. DOI: 10.1021/es050949r

S. Song, A. Lopez-Valdivieso, D.J. Hernandez-Campos, C. Peng, M.G. Monroy-Fernandez, I. Razo-Soto, Arsenic removal from high-arsenic water by enhanced coagulation with ferric ions and coarse calcite, Water Research, 40/2 (2006) 364-372. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2005.09.046

Min Jang, Soo-Hong Min, Tak-Hyun Kim, Jae Kwang Park, Removal of Arsenite and Arsenate Using Hydrous Ferric Oxide Incorporated into Naturally Occurring Porous Diatomite, Environ. Sci. Technol., 40/5 (2006) 1636-1643. DOI: 10.1021/es051501t

Sushil Raj Kanel, Jean-Mark Grenèche, Heechul Choi, Arsenic(V) Removal from Groundwater Using Nano Scale Zero-Valent Iron as a Colloidal Reactive Barrier Material, Environ. Sci. Technol., 40/6 (2006) 2045-2050. DOI: 10.1021/es0520924

Michael Berg, Samuel Luzi, Pham Thi Kim Trang, Pham Hung Viet, Walter Giger,
Doris Stüben, Arsenic Removal from Groundwater by Household Sand Filters: Comparative
Field Study, Model Calculations, and Health Benefits, Environ. Sci. Technol., 40/17 (2006) 5567-5573. DOI: 10.1021/es060144z

Lee Blaney, Sudipta Sarkar, Arup K. SenGupta, Comment on "Arsenic Removal from Groundwater by Household Sand Filters: Comparative Field Study, Model Calculations, and Health Benefits", Environ. Sci. Technol., 41/3 (2007) 1051-1052. DOI: 10.1021/es062403q

Dinesh Mohan, Charles U. Pittman, Arsenic removal from water/wastewater using adsorbents - A critical review, J. Hazard. Mater., 142/1-2 (2007) 1-53. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2007.01.006