Arsenic Research Team Contribution (Imtiaz Karim, imk27@cornell.edu)
Start of Spring 13 Semester:
As a member of the arsenic research group, I hope to use the knowledge that I gained from the CEE 4540 course last fall, along with new research to help develop methods to test for the removal of arsenic from groundwater. We will look into possibly using a water pre-treatment/coagulant combination to remove arsenic from the system. The goal this semester is to do the research and create a way for the next arsenic team to begin testing using a benchtop water treatment system (to keep the dynamics as close to a real system as possible).
End of Spring 13 Semester:
Over the course of the semester we put in a lot of time not only researching how arsenic interacts with various particles in water, but also how the arsenic may behave in an AguaClara plant. Based off of the knowledge that we have gained, we think the next course of action would be for the next arsenic team to begin testing for arsenic removal using a benchtop model plant. We decided to forgo the idea of doing jar tests since that doesn't well replicate the interactions which the particles may see in an actual water treatment facility. I have also been in contact with Bill Leonard from Cornell EH&S in talking about arsenic disposal and we have decided that the best way to do this is to set up a DOT Hazardous Chemical pick-up station where EH&S will take our wastewater from testing. Even though we will be working with arsenic and coagulant concentrations which are low, it still would not be ethical to knowingly pour arsenic containing solution down the drain into the municipal sewage lines. The more in depth research that we have done can be found in our team paper and we believe the next team should use this as a guideline to narrow down their testing procedure.