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Hi Stewart,

Something stuck in my mind about bone char - have a surf around looking for 'removal of lead from water crushed bone filters' and you will find a lot of sites claiming this to be true. Certainly I recall someone I met testing crushed bone as a way to remove fluoride and it seems bone char will do the same. Calcine filters are also mentioned as a re carbon, ion exchange resins and activated alumina. I recall slow sand filters also being effective at removing lead from water through adsorption - removal is borne out by a National Drinking Water Clearing House fact sheet. Other webpages state that sand filters cannot cope with heavy metals or other excessive pollutants so it may be a question of intensity. You would need to research this more thoroughly. The CDC has a nice webpage on Domestic Slow Sand Filters titled The Safe Water System at www.cdc.gov/safewater/sand-filtration.html Household Slow Sand Filtration is a good approach to take in any case if using rainwater.

Fascinating that you are doing this on a limestone island - lots of references to using limestone-based granules to effectively remove arsenic, cadmium and lead from water. One sdstate.ebu website there is a pdf titled Development of an Agglomeration Process to Increase the Efficiency of Limestone Based Material to Remove Metals from Drinking Water. Google that title followed by filetype:pdf and you will find it.

There is also a paper on the digitalcommons.wku.edu website titled "reducing lead and selenium from drinking water using limestone-based material" that shows very strong results using limestone for lead removal.

If you can find the source of contamination then great problem solved! If not then the answer may lie below your feet ... :-)

All the best with solving the problem,

Steve

Hi Stewart,

Something stuck in my mind about bone char - have a surf around looking for 'removal of lead from water crushed bone filters' and you will find a lot of sites claiming this to be true. Certainly I recall someone I met testing crushed bone as a way to remove fluoride and it seems bone char will do the same. Calcine filters are also mentioned as a re are carbon, ion exchange resins and activated alumina. I recall slow sand filters also being effective at removing lead from water through adsorption - removal is borne out supported by a National Drinking Water Clearing House fact sheet. Other webpages state that sand filters cannot cope with heavy metals or other excessive pollutants so it may be a question of intensity. You would need to research this more thoroughly. thoroughly.

The CDC has a nice webpage on Domestic Slow Sand Filters titled The Safe Water System at www.cdc.gov/safewater/sand-filtration.html Household Slow Sand Filtration is a good approach to take in any case if using rainwater.

Fascinating that you are doing this on a limestone island - lots of references to using limestone-based granules to effectively remove arsenic, cadmium and lead from water. One On sdstate.ebu website there is a pdf titled Development of an Agglomeration Process to Increase the Efficiency of Limestone Based Material to Remove Metals from Drinking Water. Google that title followed by filetype:pdf and you will find it.

There is also a paper on the digitalcommons.wku.edu website titled "reducing lead and selenium from drinking water using limestone-based material" that shows very strong results using limestone for lead removal.

If you can find the source of contamination then great problem solved! If not then the answer may lie below your feet ... :-)

All the best with solving the problem,

Steve