(60s) Arsenic Removal From Water through Simple Mucilage-Based Filters

Developing communities that depend on ground water as their main source may be exposed to arsenic and current commercial removal methods are very expensive. Research was conducted in order to develop an effective and affordable filter capable of removing arsenic from water. Mucilage from the Opuntia ficus-indica cactus was chosen as one of the components of the filter because of it's know capability of lowering arsenic concentration. Non-geling extract was used during all experiments. In order to improve the filters capabilities on arsenic removal, factors like solution pH levels and column composition were studied and optimized to obtain the best results. Mucilage concentration was varied in order to determine if there was a relationship between the amount of mucilage present and the amount of arsenic removed with the filter. Other affecting factor, like washing the sand previous to experiments, were also observed during the series of experiments. A sand:clay filter variation, with a 90:10 proportion respectively, demonstrated the best performance regarding arsenic removal, after achieving a 97.68 percent of arsenic removal from an aqueous solution.