I-Corps: Water treatment technology to remove arsenic from contaminated groundwater

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the potential development of a water treatment technology that may produce arsenic-free drinking water for small, low-income rural communities. About 200 million individuals are exposed to high levels of arsenic through their drinking water. Arsenic is a naturally occurring groundwater contaminant and causes the most excess cancers of any regulated carcinogenic water contaminant at its permitted level.

The proposed technology may benefit small communities with a water quality problem that up until now may have been too expensive to address at small scale. Although other arsenic-removal technologies exist, their unit costs rise rapidly at small scale, leaving many communities potentially unable to afford operation and maintenance of such plants once they have been built.

In addition, the proposed technology also may help alleviate the burden placed on health care systems for costs associated with arsenic-related cancers, which ranges between $75,000 to $150,000 per person in the United States.

This I-Corps project is based on the development of technology for remediation of arsenic contamination of water. This proposed electrochemical technology removes arsenic by releasing in the water iron rust that first binds to arsenic and is subsequently removed through filtration or settling. The proposed technology may remove high concentrations of arsenic from groundwater down to levels consistently below the EPA-approved maximum level of 10 ppb.

The advantages of the proposed technology over current arsenic removal technologies include possible better efficacy of arsenic removal, potentially lower capital and operating and maintenance costs, requires less labor, and could eliminate the production of any liquid waste stream.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.