Arsenic Waste Management: A Critical Review of Testing and Disposal of Arsenic-Bearing Solid Wastes Generated during Arsenic Removal from Drinking Water

Abstract

Water treatment technologies for arsenic removal from groundwater have been extensively studied due to widespread arsenic contamination of drinking water sources. Central to the successful application of arsenic water treatment systems is the consideration of appropriate disposal methods for arsenic-bearing wastes generated during treatment. However, specific recommendations for arsenic waste disposal are often lacking or mentioned as an area for future research and the proper disposal and stabilization of arsenic-bearing waste remains a barrier to the successful implementation of arsenic removal technologies. This review summarizes current disposal options for arsenic-bearing wastes, including landfilling, stabilization, cow dung mixing, passive aeration, pond disposal, and soil disposal. The findings from studies that simulate these disposal conditions are included and compared to results from shorter, regulatory tests. In many instances, short-term leaching tests do not adequately address the range of conditions encountered in disposal environments. Future research directions are highlighted and include establishing regulatory test conditions that align with actual disposal conditions and evaluating nonlandfill disposal options for developing countries.

Comprehensive Screen of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles for DNA Adsorption, Fluorescence Quenching, and Anion Discrimination

“…For environmental science, it is important to know arsenic speciation. 35 Detection of phosphate is important on its own. Most river water has a low phosphate level, and elevated phosphate leads to water eutrophication problems.…”

Groundwater arsenic removal by coagulation using ferric(III) sulfate and polyferric sulfate: A comparative and mechanistic study

“…9). The leachate As level in WET is one order of magnitude higher than that in TCLP and SPLP because the citric acid in the procedure can strongly chelate Fe in Fe hydroxide and dissociate As to solution (Clancy et al, 2013). Nevertheless, the released As level was still an order of magnitude lower than the US EPA's regulation.…”

“…To evaluate whether the coagulated solid residue could be safely disposed as landfill, the leaching potential of As was evaluated using three methods including the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) (US EPA, 1992), synthetic precipitation leaching procedure (SPLP) (Clancy et al, 2013), and California waste extraction test (WET) (Clancy et al, 2013) with details in Appendix A Table S1. Triplicate samples were placed in a capped polypropylene bottle in a rotator at 30 r/min for the required time, and filtered through a 0.22-μm membrane filter for As analysis.…”

“…9). Furthermore, the removed As in the coagulated residue is stable from the point of view that SPLP is used to mimic acid rain under environmental disposal anaerobic conditions (Clancy et al, 2013). In leachates from both TCLP and SPLP, only As(III) was observed, with no detection of As(V).…”

Extraction of Metal Arsenic from Waste Sodium Arsenate by Roasting with Charcoal Powder

“…The advancement on the treatment of arsenic wastes has been reviewed by several researchers [6][7][8][9], and one can notice that, because of lack in economical motivation, efforts are seldom put on its recovery. Instead, a lot of work has been carried out to stabilize arsenic in order to reduce its mobility.…”