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MnO2-modified activated carbon and granular nano-TiO2 in tandem succeed in treating domestic well water arsenic at point of use

Nature Water volume 2, pages 674–683 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Globally, millions of rural households that use groundwater for drinking are exposed to inorganic arsenic, frequently as arsenite (As(III)). Crucial for health protection, adsorption-based treatment works well for arsenate (As(V)) but not for slower-adsorbing As(III). Liquid oxidants, though impractical for point of use, are widely used to pre-oxidize As(III) to As(V) in point-of-entry treatment for better performance and cost saving. Here MnO2-modified activated carbon, a solid oxidant, was integrated into a point-of-use system with granular nano-TiO2 as the main adsorbent for two real-world tests, supplying As-safe water at less than US$0.01 l−1. One 4-month deployment treated 4,200 bed volumes (~2.1 m3) of groundwater with 69 ± 16 μg l−1 As (78 ± 5% As(III)). Another 28-month deployment treated 10,000 bed volumes (~5.0 m3) of groundwater with 42 ± 21 μg l−1 As (33 ± 21% As(III)). Interactions between the groundwater matrix and filter media affect performance, highlighting the need to verify household As removal technologies through long-term deployments.

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Fig. 1: Schematic diagram of the kitchen sink POU for As removal and monthly record of bed volumes of the treated water and daily water consumption during the 28-month deployment at YC.
Fig. 2: Compositions of influent and effluent versus the volume of treated water.
Fig. 3: Arsenic, iron and manganese of five treatment media samples in three filters obtained by XRF, digestion and selective leaching after 28-month deployment in YC.
Fig. 4: Microbially mediated Fe, N, and S reactions in YC POU.

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Data availability

Data for all the aqueous-phase and solid-phase samples mentioned in this article are provided in Supplementary Tables 3–9. Relative abundance of Fe-, Mn-, S- and N-related bacterial community for the solid samples after 28-month deployment at YC is provided in Supplementary Table 10, with the sequence data available in NCBI under accession number PRJNA1013411.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Chen family for allowing us to install the household As removal units in Yinchuan Plain. Support was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 41831279, Y.Z.), the National Key R&D Program of China (grant 2021YFA0715900, Y.D.), the Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement and Early Warning Technology for Urban Environmental Health Risks (grant ZDSYS20220606100604008, Y.D. and Y.Z.), the Guangdong Province Bureau of Education (grant 2020KCXTD006, Y.Z.), the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil and Groundwater Pollution Control (grant 2023B1212060002, Y.Z.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 32250410300, A.P.) and High Level of Special Funds (grant G030290001, Y.Z.)

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement and Early Warning Technology for Urban Environmental Health Risks, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Yanhua Duan & Yan Zheng

  2. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil and Groundwater Pollution Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Yanhua Duan, Yuqin Sun, Alejandro Palomo, Zengyi Li, Baoling Yang & Yan Zheng

  3. State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Integrated Surface Water-Groundwater Pollution Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Yanhua Duan, Yuqin Sun, Alejandro Palomo, Zengyi Li, Baoling Yang & Yan Zheng

  4. Center for Environmental Systems, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA

    Qiantao Shi, Derek Z. Zhang & Xiaoguang Meng

  5. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA

    Qiang Yang

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  1. Yanhua Duan
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Contributions

Design: X.M and Y.Z. Deployment and sampling: Y.S., Z.L., Q.S., Y.D., Q.Y., X.M. and Y.Z. Methodology: Y.D., Y.S., A.P., B.Y., Q.S., Q.Y. and D.Z.Z. Formal analysis: Y.D., Y.S., A.P. and X.M. Project administration: Y.Z. and X.M. Writing—original draft: Y.D. and Y.Z. Writing—review and editing: Y.D., Y.S., A.P., Z.L., B.L., Q.S., D.Z.Z., Q.Y., X.M. and Y.Z.

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Correspondence to Xiaoguang Meng or Yan Zheng.

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Nature Water thanks Mengchang He and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Text 1–5, Figs. 1–8 and Tables 1–10.

Reporting Summary

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Source data for bed volumes of treated water and daily water use for each month.

Source Data Fig. 2

Source data for arsenic, iron and manganese in the influent and effluent for the 4-month deployment in NJ and 28-month deployment in YC.

Source Data Fig. 3

Source data for arsenic, iron and manganese of five treatment media samples collected after 28-month deployment in YC.

Source Data Fig. 4

Source data for relative abundance of Fe-, N- and S-related bacterial community for the five solid samples.

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Duan, Y., Sun, Y., Palomo, A. et al. MnO2-modified activated carbon and granular nano-TiO2 in tandem succeed in treating domestic well water arsenic at point of use. Nat Water 2, 674–683 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00268-9

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