Chemistry Professor Awarded $1 Million for Clean Water Technology
Abul Hussam, Chemistry
Professor. Photo courtesy
of Chemistry Department
By Geri Lee, Office of Research and Economic Development
Abul Hussam, chemistry professor at George Mason University, received the National Academy of Engineering’s prestigious $1 million, 2007 Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability, at a gala dinner in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 20. “I was quite surprised by finding myself to be selected as top, but we knew that the Grainger Challenge Prize was meant for us,” Hussam said in speaking with Charles R. O’Melia, Abel Wolman professor of environmental engineering, Johns Hopkins University and NAE member (interview).
For the past five years, his innovative technology provided arsenic-free drinking and cooking water to 400 thousand residents of Bangladesh. It is affordable, socially acceptable, environmentally friendly, maintenance-free and guaranteed to produce 20 liters per hour, enough for two families to share one system. Hussam’s invention is a simple solution to a complicated problem. The award winning SONO water filtration system consists of three-buckets, purifying contaminated water as it moves through each bucket. It costs $35-$45 and is guaranteed to provide arsenic-free water for five years. This same water filtration system has been placed in 1000 schools and runs all day to serve safe drinking water to students. Arsenic-tainted well water has been a known problem for years.
In 1998, the New York Times featured a front page story regarding the arsenic problem. “Bangladesh is in the midst of a mass poisoning in history, dangerous levels of arsenic have been found in the ground water, entering millions of people, sip by sip as they drink from over 4 million tube-wells.” “If this were the United States, they’d call out National Guards and get everyone bottled water,…arsenic in drinking water poses the highest cancer risk ever found, we could be talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths-this is a medical emergency. In the truest sense of the term, this should be declared as a humanitarian emergency of unprecedented scale and consequences,” said the New York Times in 1998.
Arsenic Filtration Laboratory,
Three-pitcher system developed in
1999. Photo courtesy of Harvard.
In addition to health implications, there are social and economic complexities. Sores develop on face, hands, and feet, making it impossible to hide the illness of arsenic poisoning. Affected individuals are shunned from their communities. Hussam, who was born and raised in Kushtia, drank this water for more than 15 years. Alerted to the poisons, he tested the water himself, finding 150-175 parts per billion—four to five times higher than what is considered safe.
Abul Barkat, Professor of Economics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, reported in 2004 about women as victims of arsenic poisoning. Women are completely ostracized from their family and community. The open sores on their face, arms and hands cause husbands to abandon them and communities to shun them. “What is the solution?” asked the Bangladeshis. Hussam’s early attempts to remove arsenic from drinking water began as a three-pitcher filtration system in 1999 and evolved to the SONO system used today.
Hussam received the $1 million check at the NEA event, surrounded by his family, friends and colleagues. Other award winners included Timothy J. Berners-Lee for combining ideas to create the World Wide Web and Yan-Cheng “Bert” Fung for his contributions to human tissue recovery and improving prosthetic orthopedic devices. Hussam announced that 70 percent of the $1 million prize will provide water filtration systems to needy communities in Bangladesh, 25 percent will further research at George Mason and five percent will go to George Mason Intellectual Properties, Inc.
For more information about Dr Hussam's Research:
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/chemistry/faculty/hussam/index.html