Collaboration with Hamburg University of Technology
Even established products, like our GEH granular adsorpent, find new fields of application and process options. With this in mind, the Institute of Water Resources and Water Supply at the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg (TUHH) formed a research project to develop an innovative process for removing arsenic from drinking water that can be applied in addition to the tried-and-tested GEH fixed-bed adsorber technology currently in use.
Since 2016, Muhammad Usman, a Ph.D. student at TUHH, has been exploring a new adsorption process using micro-sized GEH in suspension and other micro-sized adsorbents (< 0.25 mm). The work is being carried out as part of a DAAD scholarship. To do so, he is performing laboratory tests on a hybrid system comprising adsorption and a low-pressure membrane filtration process. The potential benefit of such a process lies in the high adsorption capacity of the micro-sized GEH material, whilst also being capable of simultaneously removing solids from the untreated water. The project is being conducted as a scientific exchange with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
The research work is almost completed and the results confirm that, in suspended form, micro-sized GEH can be applied to positive effect in a combined process with membrane filtration. Whilst the adsorption efficiency is comparable to that found in a GEH fixed-bed filter, this combined process can remove arsenic, micro-organisms and turbidities simultaneously. The findings achieved to date have been published in an article in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08327-w) and were presented to experts in the field at the 2019 IWA Membrane Technology Conference.
Further information:
Online project page on Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/project/Arsenic-removal-from-water-using-low-cost-iron-oxyhydroxides
Online project page of the TUHH: https://www.tuhh.de/alt/wwv/research/research/arsenic-removal.html
