October 02, 2008

LANXESS Provides for Clean Drinking Water

BU ION develops innovative hybrid adsorber to remove arsenic

In the production of drinking water, the focus is increasingly on the removal of toxic trace impurities, particularly arsenic. LANXESS has now developed a product that can reliably remove this toxic metalloid from drinking water: Lewatit FO36 is an innovative hybrid adsorber consisting of a combination of a polymeric anion exchange resin and an iron oxide with a goethite structure. The iron oxide is distributed in the pores of the weakly basic ion exchange resin in a layer a few nanometers* thick by a special production process. This fine, highly reactive iron oxide layer can selectively adsorb the arsenic. Because, unlike the other anionic components of water such as chloride, nitrate, sulfate and carbonate, only arsenic has this high affinity to the iron oxide surface, and is thus the only substance to be adsorbed. The other mineral components – some of them valuable – remain in the drinking water.

Although Lewatit FO36 was designed by the Ion Exchange Resins business unit (BU ION) primarily for adsorbing arsenic, it can also be used for adsorbing other trace impurities. LANXESS has thus enhanced its Lewatit range of products with another premium product serving the new market for products to remove trace impurities from drinking water.

Find more details in the new brochure called "Arsenic Removal".

* One nanometer is about 20.000 times thinner than one human hair”