Fighting Arsenic

New Mexico Business Journal, Oct, 2001

The incidence of arsenic in drinking water, especially in western states like New Mexico, is not small. It's all naturally occurring, however, and has been in the water for millennia. Nevertheless, it would be better were it not there. That's why researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are using supercomputers to design new chemicals with what they say are "flypaper-like trapping qualities." This is quite a boom at a time when communities across the country are facing major costs in reducing arsenic concentrations.

The new materials identified by the computers are called Specific Anion Nanoengineered Sorbents (we knew that) or, thankfully, SANS. They arc slated to be tested at a planned city water purification demonstration plant in Albuquerque and also in several smaller systems throughout the state. The Sandians think SANS could reduce the sticker shock of removing arsenic from drinking water.