The Army is concerned with the presence of toxic industrial chemicals and materials (TICs/TIMs) in emergency drinking water and is currently funding development efforts for devices based on adsorptive media to remove these chemicals. The Army’s current methods for purification of emergency water is primarily aimed at biological decontamination through the use of disinfectants like iodine and chlorine (Chlor Floc). Disinfectants are also used for purification of emergency drinking water for the general public. While these techniques have some effectiveness toward biological contaminants, it is not known what, if any, effect these have on chemical contaminants. A representative list of TICs/TIMs has been established by Army Public Health and include a diverse range of polar and non-polar organics, heavy metals and toxic anions with associated challenge concentrations and military exposure guidelines as acceptance criteria. Analytical procedures for measuring their levels in drinking water to determine the effectiveness of these devices are being developed. In this study, the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center is treating water intentionally contaminated with TICs/TIMs from the established list. The initial effort of this study was to determine the mitigation potential of adsorptive media to remove heavy metals in emergency drinking water with a focus on arsenic, cadmium, and selenium. To perform the testing, an amount of contaminated water representing an Army treatment goal at the individual level of 135 liters was pumped through a flow cell that contained various media and their ability to remove the heavy metals was determined by periodic sampling and analysis via furnace atomic absorption or inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy. The test methods and results of the analysis of various media on the mitigation of the identified heavy metals and other select TICs/TIMs will be presented. The results of this testing will help guide media selection for adsorptive devices being developed. Additional work with the absorptive materials has been initiated on the removal of other chemicals from the representative list including organophosphates, perfluorinated compounds, and industrial solvents.

Mitigation of toxic industrial chemicals and materials in water for emergency individual hydration

255th National Meeting (2018)

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