A review on arsenic in the environment: contamination, mobility, sources, and exposure (original) (raw)
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Arsenic: Source, Distribution, Toxicity and Bioremediation
Arsenic Toxicity: Challenges and Solutions, 2021
Arsenic is ubiquitous in nature and a well-known toxic metalloid. There are four oxidation states (À3, 0, +3 and + 5) of arsenic found in nature and most common forms are +3 and + 5. The main sources of arsenic in nature are anthropogenic and natural activities. The natural sources include rocks, soils, seawater, arsenicbearing minerals, volcanic emission and river originating from Himalaya. The anthropogenic activities include mining, smelting, use in herbicides and combustion of fossil fuels. The exposure to arsenic occurs mainly by consumption of arsenic contaminated drinking water or food. Arsenic is distributed all around the world beyond permissible limits in drinking water. Such type of contamination was reported in India,
International conference on environmental arsenic: an overview
Environmental Health Perspectives, 1977
The purpose of the conference was to assess the current level of scientific knowledge about arsenic as an environmental toxicant and to identify needed areas of research. This overview was assembled with the assistance of persons attending the conference, but final responsibility for the summary content and attached recommendations should be regarded as that of only the conference chairman. The meeting was divided into consecutive sessions dealing with methods and problems of analysis, sources of environmental pollution, occurrence and transformation in-nature, effects and dose-response relationships in humans, kinetics and metabolism, effects and dose-response relationships in animals. Each of these sessions is summarized below followed by recommendations for areas of future research.
Arsenic in Our Environment -A Critical Review
Table 2: Main Modern Uses of Arsenic Compounds Sector Uses Agriculture Pesticides, insecticides, defoliants, wood preservatives, debarking trees, soil sterilant Livestock Feed additives, disease prevention (swine dysentery, heartworn infection), cattle and sheep dips, algaecides. Medicine Antisyphilitic drugs, treatment of trypanosomiasis, amebiasis, and sleeping sickness. Electronics Solar cells, optoelectronic devices, semiconductor application, light-emitting diodes (digital watches). Industry Glassware electrophotography catalysts, pyrotechnics, antifouling paints, dyes and soaps, ceramics, pharmaceutical substances. Metallurgy Alloys (autonotive body solder and radiators), battery palates (hardening agents). Source: Nriagu and Azcue, 1990 Despite the immense controversy, arsenic acid is still in use in the formation of wood preservative salts (Takashi et al. 1983; Warner and Solomon 1990) while sodium arsenite solution are used debarking trees, in cattle and sheep dips, and in aquatic weed control. Metallic arsenic is used in the making of alloys, in combination with lead and to a lesser extent with copper. Trace quantities of arsenic are added to lead-antimony grid alloys used in acid batteries (Carapella, 1978). The addition of up to 3%of arsenic hardens the lead and minimises the softening of leadbase usually contain 0.5% of arsenic. The addition of arsenic (0.5-2%) improves the sphericity of lead ammunition. Minor additions of arsenic (0.02-0.5%) to copper and copper alloys raise the recrystallisation temperature and improve corrosion resistance (Carapella, 1978). Phosphorised and deoxidised arsenical copper alloys are used, among other things, in locomotive fireboxes, condenser tubes, and heat exchanger and distillation tubes. Exceedingly high purity arsenic metal (99.99%) is used in the electronics industry, primarily in the form of gallium and indium arsenide to form semiconductor compounds. GLOBAL CYCLING OF ARSENIC The principal pathways that arsenic follows from the continents to the oceans in the absence of human activities are weathering, including solubilization and transport of sediment and volcanism. Onishi and Sandell (1955) in a review of the geochemistry of arsenic make a balance between the igneous rocks (arsenic content about 2ppm) and the sediments (arsenic in shale and deep-sea sediment 10ppm, in sandstone and limestone 1.5ppm). They observe that if the quantity of sediments is about equal to the quantity of weathered rocks, then much of the
The carcinogenic properties of As were suspected as early as the late 19 th Century (Smith et al., 2002). Arsenic is now widely recognized and regulated as a carcinogen (ATSDR, 2000; National Research Council, 1999; USEPA, 2001). Consequently, the occurrence of As in waters at concentrations that exceed existing standards for drinking-water supplies has become of increasing concern, leading to recommended or legislated decreases in concentrations of As in drinking water in many countries. In 1993, the World Health Organization provisionally recommended a decrease from 50 μg/L to 10 μg/L (WHO, 1993). The United States (USA) federal standard, the European Union (EU) Drinking Water Directive (98/83/EC), the New Zealand Drinking Water Standard, the Japanese standard, and recent laws in many Latin American countries (
Recent developments on arsenic: contamination and remediation
2006
Arsenic (As) is widely known for its adverse effects on human health, affecting millions of people around the world. In Asia the consumption of groundwater (through wells) in an attempt to replace polluted surface water supplies has resulted in widespread As poisoning. Both, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have established the As level for drinking water at 10 µg LP-1 P. Unfortunately, some developing countries still use the old standard of 50 µg LP-1 P, primarily because of economical factors that prevent access to new technologies. Given the importance of As as a global environmental toxicant to bioorganisms, we present a brief review about its origin, anthropogenic sources, chemistry, and concentration in soils and waters around the world. The review also discusses the latest analytical methodologies for As determination and some removal mechanisms-with emphasis on phytoremediation. Origin of Arsenic in soil Arsenic (As) can be present in soils, air and water as a metalloid and as chemical compounds of both inorganic and organic forms (Matschullat, 2000; Miteva, et al., 2005). Arsenic ranks twentieth in abundance of elements in the earth's crust, fourteenth in seawater and is the twelfth most abundant element in the human body (Mandal and Suzuki, 2002). Despite its abundance, it is one of the most toxic elements encountered in the environment (Cullen and Reimer, 1989, Dermatas, et al., 2004; Hudson-Edwards, et al., 2004). Arsenic can enter terrestrial and aquatic environments through both natural geologic processes (geogenic) and human (anthropogenic) activities. The natural pool of As in surface soils arose from the net of geological, hydrological and soil-forming biogeochemical processes. Under typical soil-forming conditions, the nature of soil As is controlled by the lithology of the parent rock materials, volcanic activity, weathering history, transport, sorption, biological activity and precipitation (Kabata-Pendias and Adriano, 1995). The average As content in the earth's crust was estimated to be about 1.8 mg KgP-1 P (Greenwood and Earnshaw, 1984). A similar value of 1.5 mg KgP-1 P was suggested by Onishi (1969) for igneous rocks. Higher As levels were detected in sedimentary rocks and values as high as 13 mg KgP-1 P (Onishi, 1969) are common for clayrich rocks. Since As accumulates due to weathering and translocation in colloid fractions, its concentration is usually higher in soils than in parent rocks (Yan-Chu, 1994). More recently, Smith, et al. (1998a) and Zhang, et al. (2002) suggested that as a result of the variability in these processes, the distribution of As in sedimentary rocks is highly variable. Arsenic concentrations range from 1.7 to 400 mg KgP-1 P in sedimentary rocks, and from 1.3 to 3.0 mg KgP-1 P in the igneous rocks. The national academy of sciences, medical * WHO World Health Organization, drinking water guidelines; EU: European Union drinking water guidelines and soil threshold values; NL: Dutch standards for groundwater concentrations and permissible soil concentrations (the first numbers refer to reference values, the second to maximum permissible levels); TVO-D: German drinking water standards; DVGW: German surface water (raw water) guidelines (for ranges see NL); Cal.Ass.: Californian Assessment Manual Standards (threshold value for dangerous total concentrations TTLC); KSVO-D: German threshold values for maximum permissible soil concentrations; D-Test: German threshold values for different soil uses (low= children playground, high= industrial area).
Arsenic in the environment: a global perspective
Heavy Metals in the …, 2002
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European Journal of Soil Science, 2007
The increasing concern about arsenic in the environment and its detrimental effects on human health has resulted in a prolific increase in research on the topic in recent years. The large number of books published recently on environmental arsenic reflects this wide interest. This also means that this new book is entering an already crowded field and hence a degree of overlap with previous publications is inevitable. Provided with such a title, you could be forgiven for taking the book as a practical manual on remediation of arsenic in the environment. It is actually much more, ranging in scope from practical to theoretical and from case study to review. It consists of 38 chapters written by a large number of authors from numerous countries and continents. It is divided into 10 sections. These cover the regional occurrence of arsenic-rich groundwaters including some overviews for whole countries, as well as analytical tools, arsenic biogeochemical processes in groundwater and soil, arsenic in food, effects on human health and remediation of arsenicaffected waters and soils. The book includes several helpful and timely review chapters. One considers solid-phase speciation of arsenic, including recent findings from synchrotron-based XAFS spectroscopy. Others deal with the uptake of arsenic in plants, phytotoxicity, exposure from food and the pathology and effects of arsenic on health. The coverage in several chapters of recent developments in remediation techniques, including photo-oxidation of aqueous arsenic and electrokinetic remediation of soils and sediments, is also thorough and well-written. Several chapters discuss the complex interacting processes that control the behaviour of arsenic in water, soil and aquifers. These reiterate the importance of redox speciation, sorption and microbial interactions. The book also discusses recent research. It notes the potential significance of food as a source of arsenic in the human body, though it stresses the dominance of exposure from drinking water in most countries where arsenic is recognized as a cause of ill health. Despite the broad scope of the book, it has the look of a conference proceedings rather than a comprehensive textbook on environmental arsenic. This means repetition in some areas and lack of coverage in others. As you might expect, the research Book reviews 519