Millions of people worldwide are drinking water containing arsenic that is considered unsafe according to standards set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This includes millions of people in Bangladesh and India. Despite extensive effort in recent years many people continue to drink arsenic contaminated water in many parts of the world and more effort is needed to develop effective and inexpensive methods that can be used to purify water for not only human consumption but also for use in agriculture and feeding livestock. Professor Haris and his team at De Montfort University were the first to demonstrate that dry biomass from the water hyacinth plant can remove arsenic from water. This is highly promising since water hyacinth plant is the fastest growing plant in the world and millions of tonnes of this plant is removed from water bodies around the world at huge costs. Turning these waste into a material that can be used to purify water has been a goal that Professor Haris and his team has been working on for a number of years. They have developed a filter, packed with a powder made from dried water hyacinth roots, that has shown promising results. Field work is being planned in arsenic affected regions of the world to evaluate the performance of the filter. To mark the World Water Day 2017, Professor Haris will highlight some of their latest research findings
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