EN
This EPA treatment technology project was designed to collect data on the performance of existing water treatment processes in order to remove arsenic on pilot-scale. Our paper contains verification testing of the reverse osmosis membrane module conducted over a 30-day period at the Spiro Tunnel Bulkhead water (Park City, Utah, USA), which is considered to be a ground water. The total arsenic concentration in the feedwater averaged 60 ppb during the test period and was reduced to an average of 1 ppb in the treated (permeate) water. The work reported here focused on obtaining accurate readings for arsenic valence states (III) and (V), using an anion exchange resin column. The dominant arsenic species in the abandoned silver mine tunnel feedwater was As(V). Results of analysis showed that 70% of the arsenic present in the feed- water was in dissolved form. Arsenic speciation for valence states (III) and (V) showed that arsenic (V) represented 76% of the dissolved arsenic in the source water. The method detection limit (MDL) for arsenic using ICP-MS was determined to be 0.1 ppb. Our matrix spiked recovery, spiked blank samples and reference materials deviated only a few percentage points from the listed true values.