A small-scale arsenic and iron removal plant
Practical Action
Maintenance
Regularly clean the outer sides/periphery of the plant and ensure it is free from water
logging
Keep the plant covered with the CI/plastic sheet
Keep the outlet pipes closed
After a 7 days interval flush out the water (opening the outlets) 2 or 3 times and clean the
chambers
After one month or if the performance of the plant is found to be unsatisfactory (test with
the green guava leaves), take out all the media/filter materials separately then clean and
wash with hot water mixed with bleaching powder (10 gm per liter of water), dry in sunlight
and refill.
After one year or if the performance of the plant is found unsatisfactory then all filter/media
materials should be replaced by new materials
Water containing a lot of iron contamination quickly reduces the adsorption and filtration
capacity of the filter/media materials. In this case, the filter materials need to be cleaned
more regularly to keep the plant functional. But if the iron concentration in the raw water is
low, then iron can be added (iron pins/nails could be added with brick chips) to chamber C4
Figure 4: Demonstration of AIRP operation.
Photo: Moin/DRIK.
Figure 5: Arsenic removal monitoring with
guava leaves. Photo: Moin/DRIK.
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