Introduction to Arsenic

1. Anup Ghimire
Rock Face Limited

2.  Natural inorganic silver grey or white brittle
odourless and tasteless metal.
 GroupV element in periodic table
 20th position for its abundance in the earth’s
crust, 14th in sea water and 12th in human
body.

3.  Mining, glass processing and landfill leaching
 Semiconductor applications, solar cells and
opto- electronic devices
 Soil sterilizers, glassware
production, polymerisation of unsaturated
compounds

4.  Distributed in air, soil and water.
 Foods such as meat, fish, poultry, grain and
cereals.
 Arsenic occurs in groundwater as oxidised
forms (As (III)) and reduced forms (As (V)).

6.  Arsenic sulfide, arsenic rich pyrite and arsenic
rich iron oxyhydrides
 Agrochemicals, wood
preservatives, industrial waste
disposal, mining and mineral processing, acid
mine drainage and burning of fossil fuels.

7.  Acute Health Effects: vomiting, abdominal
pain and diarrhoea.
 Long term exposure: pigmentation
changes, skin lesions, hard patches on the
palms and soles of the feet
(hyperkeratosis), developmental
effects, neurotoxicity, diabetes and
cardiovascular diseases

8.  Precipitation
 Sedimentation
 Coagulation
 Conventional Filtration
 Oxidation
 Adsorption
 Membrane Filtration