Author(s)

VASILE MINZATU, ADINA NEGREA, CORNELIU MIRCEA DAVIDESCU, CORINA SEIMAN DUDA, MIHAELA CIOPEC, NARCIS DUŢEANU, PETRU NEGREA, DANIEL DUDA SEIMAN, BOGDAN IOAN PASCU

Abstract

One of the main goals of the World Health Organization (WHO) and its Member States is that “all people, regardless of their stage of development and their social-economic condition, have the right to have access to adequate drinking water”. The problem of remediation of waters contaminated with toxic substances, using natural resources, is a special concern at a high level. Researchers’ efforts have sought to find effective and cheap ways to reduce the impact on the environment. As(III) gets into the environment from a variety of natural and anthropogenic sources. As As(III) is commonly found in rocks, soil or sediments, these sources are particularly important determinants of the As(III) zonal level in groundwater and surface water. As(III) contamination is currently one of the major problems with serious consequences on the biosphere. The main objective of this paper is the establishment of a method for the removal of As(III) from real waters by adsorption in a fixed bed column, using ecological materials, friendly to the environment. For this reason, the content of As(III) in groundwaters in the Romania–Hungary border area was determined, knowing the fact that the Pannonian Basin was given special attention, being an area heavily affected by As(III) contamination of natural water sources. The paper studies the adsorption of As(III) from a natural water taken from the monitored area. At the same time, it has followed the behaviour of microorganisms naturally existing in the soil of Timisoara city and in the Bega river in the presence of different amounts of As(III) in order to establish the relative toxicity of As(III) in them.

Keywords

As(III), groundwater, adsorption, fixed bed column, toxicity