How to Get Rid of Arsenic in Drinking Water
Arsenic is a common chemical element found in the Earth's crust. According to Jeff Schalau, an agriculture and natural resources agent at the University of Arizona, arsenic is the twentieth most abundant element on Earth and it contaminates water residing in underground aquifers that come in contact with arsenic-bearing rock and soil. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension points out that as of 2006, harmful concentrations of arsenic in drinking water have been assessed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be above ten parts per billion. Stevens Institute of Technology professors Xiaoguang Meng and George P. Korfiatis claim that treating arsenic-contaminated water with a ferric hydroxide coagulant and then passing the resulting mixture through a sand bucket filter can remove over 90 percent of the Arsenic present in the water.
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Things You'll Need
- 33.8 ounces contaminated water
- Mixing bucket
- Packet with .43 ounces ferric hydroxide
- Sand bucket filtration system
- Purified water container
Instructions
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Pour 33.8 ounces of contaminated water into a clean mixing bucket. The bucket should be rinsed prior to starting the filtration process to remove any other contaminants.
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Add a packet of coagulants containing at least 0.43 ounces of ferric hydroxide to the contaminated water. Mix the ferric hydroxide in the contaminated water to allow the iron compound in the coagulant packet to react with the arsenic compounds in the water.
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Pour the treated water from the mixing bucket into a sand bucket filtration apparatus. The filter will trap the arsenic that has bonded with the elements from the coagulant packet and allow the cleansed water to pass through.
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Once all the water has passed through the sand bucket filtration system, pour the resulting treated water into a container that will hold the purified water. To ensure the water's purity, be sure not to allow any non-purified water to enter this container.
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Tips & Warnings
The filtration process can be repeated several times to further reduce the arsenic concentration in the water. The efficacy of the filtration process is dependent on the ratio of ferric hydroxide to arsenic in the water.
Be sure to clean the filter in the filtration system after several uses. Eventually the arsenic concentrations will need to be washed out of the filter or the filter will need to be replaced.
The coagulant packet with ferric hydroxide will also contain small quantities of chlorine that will pass into the purified water. Although harmless in small amounts, chlorine is poisonous in sufficient concentrations. As a result, the filtration process should not be repeated more than three times with the same water.
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