Bureau of Reclamation Environmental Engineer shines in American Water Works Association Journal

Written by: Fred Brown

From left to right, Leah Flint, Miguel Arias-Paic, Julie Korak and Catherine Hoffman. Not pictured, Anthony Kennedy.If you open the June edition of the American Water Works Association Journal, you’ll see an article on “Nanofiltration to Improve Process Efficiency of Hexavalent Chromium Treatment Using Ion Exchange”. If you continue reading, and you’ll see that same author featured in another article. Dr. Miguel S. Arias-Paic, an environmental engineer at the Bureau of Reclamation in Lakewood, Colorado, along with his fellow authors Julie A. Korak and Richard G. Huggins wrote the article on nanofiltration treatment of ion exchange waste brine. This is his third article related to chromium removal published in a peer-reviewed journal as a senior author.

The article centers on how hexavalent chromium occurs in water sources across the United States, and how removing it in the most reliable, cost effective and environmentally friendly manner is an important challenge for many water utilities. Ion exchange is one technology that is effective for removing chromium, but the process produces a hazardous waste brine that is an expensive byproduct that is mitigated by nanofiltration. Basically, it allowed for a reduction of waste and the recovery of a usable product - the ideal recycling scenario.

“Hexavalent chromium is naturally occurring in many drinking water sources and finding ways to provide affordable and reliable drinking water is important for managing water resources,” Arias-Paic said. “An additional benefit from this research is that many of the potable water sources tested also had concentrations of arsenic, uranium, vanadium and selenium, among other constituents, that could be removed with an ion exchange process, making our results transferrable to other applications. The published findings could be used to design a treatment plant, applying science directly to engineering, not only for the water utilities we worked with but any utility with these constituents in their water."

Arias-Paic says it feels great to have the work of his team highlighted in this publication.

“The quality of the work was exceptional in my opinion, and I have the benefit of saying that since I was the senior author on the publication, responsible for the original ideas and guidance through the project. The ideas were mainly developed and executed by Julie Korak and Anthony Kennedy with support from Leah Flint and Catherine Hoffman.”

While being in the spot-light is great, Arias-Paic says there is still work to be done, along with more research.

“We are continuing to look at ways to treat chromium in water sources (two additional publications are in development) and solve other water treatment challenges that impact Reclamation stakeholders. We plan to pursue new projects by submitting proposals to the Science and Technology Program, anticipating five submissions for different projects to this year addressing selenium, bromide, water softeners and more."

To learn more about Reclamation's Science and Technology Program, please visit https://www.usbr.gov/research/st/index.html.

Published on July 26, 2018