Ashok Gadgil Wins for Creativity in an International Water Competition

Featured Faculty: Ashok Gadgil

Professor Ashok Gadgil, Andrew and Virginia Rudd Family Foundation Professor of Safe Water and Sanitation, and his team of researchers were awarded the Creativity Prize in the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water. They won for their development of an innovative and effective method of treating arsenic contamination of groundwater using electrocoagualtion. Selection of the winners is by a distinguished international jury.

Dr. Gadgil is a faculty member of the CEE environmental engineering program and serves as the Director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Arsenic pollution of groundwater is a widespread problem in the deltaic sediments around the globe. Millions of people suffer from arsenic poisoning, culminating in cancer. There has long been a need for a simple and inexpensive method of treating arsenic contaminated water, which will save millions of people from related health problems.

The Award Committee noted:
"The possible impact of the method developed by Gadgil's group – the best and most cost-effective method available to date – is huge. It is not sufficient to just establish that an electric current can precipitate arsenic. It is equally important to establish the stability of the precipitate and its behavior under different currents and with other ions present. The team has carried out this evaluation in a careful and comprehensive way using advanced scientific methods such as EXAFS. They have also considered the disposal of wastes. They have exhibited creativity by transforming this scientific knowledge successfully into an easy-to-understand and easy-to-operate, locally affordable process design."

Prizewinners for the competition's 5th year of granting awards included 2 prizes that recognized research relating to arsenic contamination of groundwater. The competition's Groundwater Prize went to Dr. Charles Harvey’s team at MIT for solving the puzzle of how and why this arsenic contamination is taking place, particularly in Bangladesh, and for providing initial answers as to what can be done to prevent it.

See Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water, 5th Award

See Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water to Berkeley Lab’s Ashok Gadgil (LBNL News Center).

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