- 14 February 2007 -

Arsenic filter wins US$1 million prize

A chemistry professor has won a US$1 million engineering prize for developing an system for filtering arsenic from well water.

Abul Hussam, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at George Mason University in Washington, USA, won the 2007 Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability awarded by the US National Academy of Engineering for the SONO filter, a household water treatment system that he and his brothers have been manufacturing and distributing in Bangladesh for about five years.

Hussam developed the SONO filter after years of testing. The filter is simple, inexpensive and made with easily available materials. It involves a top bucket, which is filled with locally available coarse river sand and a composite iron matrix (CIM).

The sand filters coarse particles and imparts mechanical stability, while the CIM removes inorganic arsenic. The water then flows into a second bucket where it again filters through coarse river sand, then wood charcoal to remove organics, and finally through fine river sand and wet brick chips to remove fine particles and stabilize water flow.

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