Acta Chimica Slovaca (ACS) publishes papers on fundamental and applied aspects of chemistry, biochemistry, chemical technology, chemical engineering and process control, biotechnology and food technology. Welcome are also topics which include chemical aspects of materials, physical chemistry and chemical physics, analytical chemistry, macromolecular chemistry and biomedical engineering.

An overview of main arsenic removal technologies

Ronald Zakhar *, Ján Derco, František Čacho a

Institute of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Slovak University of Technology, Radlinského 9, Bratislava, 81237, Slovakia
a Institute of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Slovak University of Technology, Radlinského 9, Bratislava, 81237, Slovakia

E-mail: * ronald.zakhar@stuba.sk

Abstract: Arsenic (As) is metalloid, naturally present in the environment but also introduced by human activities. It is toxic and carcinogenic and its exposure to low or high concentrations can be fatal to human health. Arsenic contamination in drinking water threatens more than 150 million peoples all over the world. Therefore, treatment of As contaminated water is of unquestionable importance. The present review begins with an overview of As chemistry, distribution and toxicity, which are relevant aspects to understand and develop remediation techniques. The most common As removal processes (chemical precipitation, adsorption, ion exchange, membrane filtration, phytoremediation and electrocoagulation) are presented with discussion of their advantages, drawbacks and the main recent achievements.

Keywords: arsenic contamination, health hazards, toxicity, removal techniques

Full paper in Portable Document Format: acs_0307.pdf

Acta Chimica Slovaca, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2018, pp. 107—113, DOI: 10.2478/acs-2018-0016