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International Conference on

Recent Trends in Environmental Sustainability

ESCON22/ETERM/59
Water quality assessment and remediation of arsenic from drinking water using
agricultural bio-waste

Zunaira Shabbir1, Muhammad Shahid*1, Natasha1, Sana Khalid1, Samina Khalid1,
Muhammad Imran1
1Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari- Campus,
61100 Pakistan
Correspondence: muhammadshahid@cuivehari.edu.pk

Abstract
Arsenic (As) is a hazardous and potentially cancer-causing metal. Nowadays, alarming levels
of As has been reported in aquifers worldwide. This study intended to estimate As
contamination status of groundwater of District Vehari and explored the efficiency of various
biosorbents (rice husk, corncobs, soybean hulls, cottonseed hulls and sugarcane bagasse) for
As removal from As-contaminated water. In first phase, about 38 groundwater/drinking water
samples from District Vehari were collected, stored, stabilized at pH < 2 and subjected for As
analysis and basic water physicochemical parameters. It was found that As content ranged from
0.4 to 49.1 µg/L in water samples of District Vehari. Additionally, human health risk was also
evaluated by the consumption of As-contaminated drinking water in terms of non-carcinogenic
risk. It was revealed that people of this area are at severe risk by observing the values of hazard
quotient and cancer risk up to 1.5 and 0.0004, respectively. Six As-contaminated water
samples (having concentrations of 16, 18, 24, 29, 40 and 49 µg/L) were selected to remediate
As. Moreover, four solutions of known As concentration (25, 50, 100 and 200 µg/L) were
synthesized by diluting aqueous standards/reference material (1000 µg/L) of As. Efficiency of
agriculture biosorbents to remove As vary greatly with respect to the type of adsorbent, initial
water concentration of As, contamination type and contact time. It was observed that
cottonseed hulls and sugarcane bagasse efficiently remove As from all water samples.
Moreover, the high removal (> 94%) was observed in laboratory prepared solutions compared
to groundwater samples. Moreover, further studies are needed to suggest appropriate particle
size of the biosorbents to effectively remediate As-contaminated water. The water samples
were treated, in this study, only to remediate As, however, the other parameters should be
considered before proposing treated water for drinking such as; color, pH, cations and anions.

Keywords: Biosorbents, cations, anions, absorption capacity, As –contaminated water

Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari Campus

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