In an arid region of Argentina, local people are forced to draw water from aquifers containing arsenic, but thanks to a Colombian researcher and local soils, they will soon be able to filter it in a safe and economical way.
Arsenic contamination of groundwater is widespread: an estimated 140 million people in at least 70 countries have been drinking water containing arsenic at levels above the WHO provisional guideline value of 10 micrograms per litre, according to World Health Organisation figures.
Jhan Burgos, a doctoral student at the National University of Córdoba (Argentina) and a Colombian chemist doing his internship at Univalle explained that in many parts of Argentina this water causes HACRE (the Spanish acronym for Chronic Regional Endemic Hydroarsenicism), a serious, long-term disease that causes symptoms in the skin, gastrointestinal system, and blood.
"We have developed a water remediation process where we can use gravity and laterite soils to supplement synthetic materials, which are very expensive," Burgos said, adding that this method requires no additional energy.
Image: Lateritic soils of the "Camino de Tierra Colorada", in the interior of Misiones province, Argentina. Credit: Leandro Kibisz
The Research
Fernando Sebastián Garay, an associate professor at the Faculty of Chemical Sciences at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; independent researcher at CONICET and Burgos' project director explained that arsenic contamination in many parts of Argentina is of geological origin and along with arsenic there is a large amount of salts, which makes the commercial designs normally used in homes in rural areas useless.
"In rural areas the cost of water purification per inhabitant is higher, so it becomes economically unviable," Professor Garay said.
Burgos explained that he came to study in Argentina thanks to scholarships from the Argentine government, which is supporting research grants that can help solve the drinking water problem in these rural areas.
"Lateritic soils are rich in iron and aluminium, and are found in the same regions of Argentina, characterised by their red earth," Burgos said, adding that they are key to the new method of water remediation.
The researchers explained that they used solar stills, which are used in many parts of the world, for example in India, to reduce the concentration of salts, where they also happen to have a high concentration of arsenic in water.
"Using a filter that is 90% laterite soils and 10% synthetic materials, we can produce a filter that works with gravity alone, without electrical energy," Burgos said.
"We found that it removes almost all of it; this was a very pleasant surprise and determined the success of the project," Professor Garay said.
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Más información sobre la Escuela de Ingeniería Química: El tratamiento del agua también producirá hidrógeno verde
Photo: Map of dangerous arsenic concentrations in groundwater in Argentina. Credit: Servicio Provincial de Agua Potable y Saneamiento Rural (https://cyt-ar.com.ar/cyt-ar/index.php?title=Archivo:Ars%C3%A9nico_en_Argentina_mapa_.jpg )
International collaboration to solve local problems
In the last months of 2023, Burgos is at the University of Valle undertaking a doctoral research internship.
During the last months of 2023, Burgos is at the Universidad del Valle doing a doctoral research internship.
Both Burgos and Garay made it clear that one of the biggest reasons for seeking an internship at Univalle was the expertise of Fiderman Machuca Martínez, the current dean of Univalle's Faculty of Engineering and an expert in the Fenton technique.
"Jhan's idea to visit Dr Machuca Martinez's group opens up a great opportunity to learn about the treatment of contaminated water with electrochemical tools," Garay said.
For Burgos, Univalle is a leader in the field of chemical engineering and water purification.
"An important thing here in the School of Chemical Engineering is the ability to scale up from the laboratory to a pilot plant in a real environment," Burgos said.
The hope of both Garay and Burgos was to provide a solution to communities in Argentina.
"I hope that Jhan's stay at the Universidad del Valle will be the starting point to establish a collaboration between our research groups in Colombia and Argentina, and that we will achieve a bidirectional flow of knowledge," Garay said.
If you are interested in contacting the researcher or learning more about the project, please write to the Communications Office Faculty of Engineering: comunicaingenieria(at)correounivalle.edu.co
Cover photo: Jhan Burgos, doctoral student at the National University of Cordoba, Argentina. Credit: Andrew James/NCC-FI/Univalle
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