Detection of Arsenic and Arsenic Compounds in Water

This would be worthwhile reading:

Field tests suggest that people who live in areas with arsenic-tainted aquifers may be able to purify their drinking water by passing it through a low-tech, ...
www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040605/note14ref.asp

Yes, I found some good information linked to that. Thanks.

I am still looking for more simpler solutions and will welcome more information.

At the risk of being labeled as "glib" ... our network news ran a story maybe a year or so ago, stating that the water supplies in a huge number of both small and major U.S. cities contained levels of arsenic that exceeded EPA recommended maximums.

The others that were tested had levels within the allowable limits.......

Essentially, if it looks like water; if it's wet like water; if it came out of the ground; it probably has a detectable level of arsenic in it.

Dear Shyam,

There are many ways of detecting arsenic: atomic absorption spectrometry, atomic emission spectrometry, voltametry, spectrophotometry etc.

Probably the simplest are the test kits made by Hach and others. Go to:

www.hach.com

and search for arsenic.

If you are interested in the other techniques, let me know.

Best regards,

Tad

Good. Thanks.

Dear Shyam,

We are distributors of Fluoride and Arsenic removal systems in India.

If you are looking for installing a system pl.Email on rajdesai35@yahoo.com

Regards,

Raj Desai

Good. I will write to your email.

A cheap, simple and highly effective means of removing arsenic from water would be to use a constructed wetland system. Using a subsurface flow system with cattails and a calcium-rich substrate, followed by a free water surface system utilizing water hyacinths and duckweed, will remove a large amount of it. With the arsenic concentration greatly reduced by the wetlands, it may now become feasible to use reverse osmosis or ion exchange to remove the remainder.

There are two things to note here.

People should be able to filter the Arsenic from water and perhaps the idea suggested is good one.

In second part, we need to finally getting the Arsenic for proper disposal and not to dispose back into the same environment. Perhaps keeping it trapped in container may be initial solution or converting into harmless storage will be ideal.

Generally filters of clay and sand given to people are again disposed off in the same environment and come back as greater concentration on later date. This one is also to be avoided. These people live in tiny remote villages where there are little or no great source of money for them to buy water. Hence, only way possible for them to use simple methods that may work under local highly stressed economy.

One channel reported that people were eating stones as they did not have funds to buy grains. I was shocked to see that they are living in such a condition in India. Perhaps, many tribes in India are totally isolated and have not reached to any kind of civilizations and others are treating them worst than animals. I just wonder if they can be helped.

One of my colleague, a nuclear scientist, in his childhood was drinking water from same pond in which pigs were taking bath and were doing toilet. His family members has lots of worms in their body. I think the local governments are totally insensitive to the problem of the people and will prefer these people to remain in such a condition. It is something like coal workers story or even worst than that. I also come from village but my family was different as my community people learnt cleanliness in very early time some 3000 years ago. However, they did not take others with them and other are still where they were 3000 years ago. There are greedy people who are keeping then in such a state for so long. I feel very sad when I think of all this.

Shyam--I appreciate the range of topics you address, and particularly the concerns you raise in this one. The best information source for Arsenic detection and removal that I know of is the American Waterworks Association. I am a member, so if you can't get something from them, I will for you. The members also sponsor a Water for People program, in which they help build and train local people to operate water treatment and distribution systems in many countries. Finally, the 7 July issue of The Economist had a thoughtful article "The eight commandments" in their Briefing section (pp 25-28 in my USA edition); I suspect you would have access to this publication.

--John M.

I will greatly appreciate receiving a soft copy of the article you have pointed to. You can email to me at sst(at)sensorstechnology(dot)com and I am also willing to come down to your place to learn the technique if available to look at. The situation here at places is grave and people need help now. I think your help may be a valuable thing for these people who are suffering daily pain and death. I will welcome your help. I am planning to be in USA in October - November 2007 and again in March 2008.