Last month AquaMinerals attended the 6th International Congress on Arsenic in the Environment. The congress provided an up-to-date picture of the problem of arsenic in the environment and therefore of its impact on drinking water and food.
It is clear that arsenic poses great problems in the effort to produce clean drinking water in South-East Asia and South America. But the problems also exists closer to home, in eastern Europe for instance. However, in these cases a number of good projects are underway in which drinking water residual streams (iron-rich filter sand) are being used to bind arsenic.
During the congress the Dutch water sector announced a positive development: it intends to produce drinking water with arsenic concentrations that are lower by a factor of ten than the WHO standard.
A presentation was also made during the congress on a research project in which AquaMinerals is working alongside partners including KWR and several drinking water companies. The project involves using iron pellets, produced from aquafer, to bind arsenic during the drinking water production process. This is clearly very promising research for applications both in the Netherlands and abroad.
