Long-term exposure to high levels of inorganic arsenic can cause cardiovascular disease and cancers of the bladder and lungs. But now, scientists from Denmark have developed a new treatment that turns arsenic-rich groundwater waste into useful raw materials.
While current methods to clean arsenic from groundwater are successful, they create another problem—an arsenic-rich sludge that requires complex, specialist and expensive disposal methods. The residue is also a major environmental and health hazard if not disposed of properly.
In a study, published in the journal Science Advances, Kaifeng Wang and Case van Genuchten at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland detail a two-step process to convert the hazardous sludge into a raw material for electronics,