Arsenic removal technologies: field applications and sustainability

Abstract

Arsenic is a metalloid and the major cause of concern for the pollution in drinking water and soil. The toxicity issues with the health, while its consumption more than the WHO permissible limit is the major reason for the death of the people, due to contaminated drinking water consumption. With respect to toxicity arsenic(III) form is considered more dangerous. Various methods and technologies have been developed against this global problem. The physical, chemical, and biological remediation technologies were developed to reduce the hazardous effects. The rock mining, volcano eruption, and contaminated soil leaching are the major sources of the groundwater contamination. Biobased remediation methods are focusing these days due to their less side effect and nontoxic nature of the treatment process such as biosorption, biomethylation, and bioaugmentation. This chapter describes the forms of arsenic, their causes, health effects, case study, different types of treatment technologies, and their use in household and commercial level. New advancements based on nanolevel treatment technologies are coming in future to completely remove the arsenic from consumable water and can also provide the benchmarks to develop more accurate technological advancement in removing total contaminations from each kind of source.