Today NASA Watch ran a story on the power of prizes for sci/tech innovation featuring the Granger Foundation's $1 million Challenge Prize for Sustainability for removing arsenic from contaminated well water in Bangladesh. The winner, Dr. Abul Hussam, a chemistry professor from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia not only came up with a solution that costs $35 to manufacture and only needs to be changed every five years, he also used most of the prize money to help pay for its distribution.

arsenic project sufferer
©Arsenic Foundation


Arsenic is an insidious poison. Due to its position on the periodic table (just below phosphorous) it binds to the same compounds that phosphorous would, interfering with some of the cell's most basic work. Remember ATP? The energy storage molecule is constantly adding or subtracting its three phosphorous atoms to power all the workings of the cell. With arsenic in the way the cells are starved of this energy and, "the liver grows stressed and the skin blotched, eventually forming gangrenous sores. Cancer manifests in the skin, liver, kidneys and bladder, and eventually people die."

The Bangladeshi doctor, now in the United States, realized that his family still was drinking the deep ground water that is contaminated with naturally occurring arsenic. The deep wells were dug in the 1970's after Bangladesh suffered from cholera and typhoid outbreaks due to contaminated surface water. Later people began to realize that the deep well water had their own dangers.

Dr. Hussam began to work on way to remove the dangerous arsenic.

Eventually, the solution came in iron turnings - those curly cues of waste iron and steel that result from lathing metal in machine shops ... Finally, after two years, he thought he had come up with a design that would work: a two-bucket system of layered charcoal, sand, and specially treated rust.
Each unit can filter up to 500 liters a day, enough for 60 people. Dr. Hussam partnered with his two brothers (a physician and a business man) to fund and distribute over 20,000 units through out Bangladesh. A fact that was not lost on the prize judges at the National Academy of Engineering.

After winning the $1 million, Dr. Hussam pledged $250,000 to ongoing research in arsenic remediation, $50,000 to the university that supported his research and the remaining $700,000 to building more filters for people who can not afford to get them for themselves.

For Those of You Who Think That Prizes Don't Work [NASAWatch]
Winning the Water Problem [Islamica Magazine]

See Also:

* Arsenic in Chicken Feed May Pose Health Risk
* Colbert and Kamen Solve the World's Water Problems
* X Prize Rolls Out $10M Prize for 100MPG Car