Berkeley Arsenic Alleviation Group

Arsenic in drinking water is a major public health problem threatening the well-being (and in many cases, lives) of more than a hundred million people. In Bangladesh alone, close to 30 million people drink arsenic laden water from shallow wells, according to World Health Organization estimates. Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a simple material (“ARUBA”—Arsenic Removal Using Bottom Ash) that takes arsenic out of drinking water cheaply, quickly, and safely. It is made from bottom ash, a waste material from coal fire power plants, which is coated with ferric hydroxide through a simple and inexpensive chemical process. After use, ARUBA can be safely disposed of in landfills.

The Berkeley Arsenic Alleviation Group (BAAG) is composed of four students—one graduate student and three undergraduates—in engineering, business, and economics. Our task is to design a process that utilizes ARUBA to effectively remove arsenic from groundwater, which is affordable to poor Bangladeshis in rural villages. In addition, we are developing a business plan for the implementation of the proposed device or process, and an associated economic analysis.

Project mission:

To design an effective community-based water treatment system to provide affordable arsenic-free water to rural Bangladeshis.
To develop a financially sustainable business strategy for implementation of treatment systems
To devise a plan for social marketing of the proposed system and educational outreach relating to the importance clean water.

Potential impact:

Reduce the prevalence of arsenic poisoning in the region, alleviating the sicknesses associated with arsenic poisoning, including gangrene, cancer and lesions in the skin, while also reducing the number of missed work days caused by these illnesses.

Required resources:

1. Total project needs: $66,000
2. In-kind contribution needs: Mileage/Plane tickets between SFO and Dhaka, Bangladesh
3. Other:

   Funding is needed to build prototype water treatment system and for associated arsenic testing. In addition we are planning additional site visits for January and the summer of 2008, at which point we hope to roll out our first field prototype.

News:

• http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v11/n11/full/nm1105-1128a.html
• http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/EETD-Gadgil-water-filter.html

Our sponsors:

NCIIA - National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance
UC Berkeley Blum Center

Project page URL:

• http://arsenic.lbl.gov/