Abstract
Arsenic contamination of drinking water is a severe problem around the world. Arsenic consumptions in low or high concentrations either through contaminated drinking water or food may cause arsenicosis in humans. Nitrate is often found as co-contaminant with arsenic in groundwater of many rural and urban areas throughout the world. This project investigates the simultaneous removal of arsenic and nitrate by means of terminal electron-accepting process (TEAP) in suspended growth batch bioreactors. Arsenic and nitrate were effectively removed in batch reactors from an initial concentration of 550 µg/L and 150 mg/L, respectively and comply with the WHO as well as BIS guidelines for drinking water. Mineralogical analyses using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analyses indicated that biogenic arsenic sulfide mineral phases are the likely mechanisms for arsenic removal in the bioreactors.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the funding by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (Government of India), through the project (Ref. No. W.11017/44/2011-WQ), to carryout this work at IIT Guwahati. Authors are also thankful to central instrument facility of IIT Guwahati for providing facilities for FESEM/EDS analysis of some samples.
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Shakya, A.K., Ghosh, P.K. (2018). Simultaneous Removal of Arsenic and Nitrate in Anaerobic Batch Reactors. In: Singh, V., Yadav, S., Yadava, R. (eds) Water Quality Management. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 79. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5795-3_3
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