Shaking things up: moving iron based systems for arsenic remediation

The provision of clean drinking water has been identified as an engineering grand challenge however millions globally consume water contaminated with arsenic, a potent carcinogen. Current existing technologies underperform in a variety of areas but most significantly in the ability to reliably provide arsenic removal to a level that is deemed safe by the WHO. A dynamic “moving” iron based arsenic remediation system has been proposed to provide a solution and could have the potential to provide a rapid and reliable means of addressing the problems associated with current systems. A moving bed of iron is utilised to stimulate corrosion continually generating iron oxides, a powerful adsorbent media for arsenic. Results show that without any attempt to optimise system design maximum time required to treat 24L of moderately arsenic contaminated groundwater was three hours demonstrating the extreme promise and need to develop this technology further.