Study of a self-sustaining and easily accessible methodology for low-resource communities for the treatment of arsenic-contaminated waters
There is a lack of knowledge on the part of the communities as to whether the water it contains contains arsenic and, if this is the case, with even more reason they ignore whether the concentration is within the permissible limits according to the World Health Organization.
In this work, a mapping will be made of some regions of the city of Cochabamba that will use water for consumption from deep wells. This mapping consists of collecting water samples from these wells using rigorous standards and these will be analyzed.
At the same time, a hydrological profile of these wells will be detected to detect possible causes of this contamination, this mapping will be carried out by the students of the Engineering degree. After the mapping, a study will be carried out to assemble a low-cost equipment that can remove the arsenic content from the water. The efficiency of this equipment developed by Prof. Ramiro Escalera and Omar Ormachea, which is through photo-oxidation, has already been verified and the next stage is to complement part of its infrastructure so that arsenic can be removed from quickly and effectively. In this part of the work, Prof. César Vaca and Francisco Aguirre will work with the student Érica Estrada who will carry out this research as their Final Degree Project.
Responsable:
Ramiro Escalera, PhD
Email: rescalera@upb.edu
Researchers:
Omar Ormachea, PhD
Francisco Aguirre, PhD
César Vaca, Civil Engineering Student
Érica Estrada, Civil Engineer Student
