According to Van from the Institute of Biochemical Technique and Professional Materials Department under the Ministry of Public Security, the test methods to find arsenic which have been used to date prove to be very complicated which require high expenses, while it is difficult for people to access and use.
Meanwhile, foreign made test kits always have high sale prices, while it is very difficult to apply and especially, errors still can be found with the tests. Therefore, Van assigned a task to himself that he needs to design a test kit which has low production cost and bring accurate results. Especially, the test kit needs to be easy to use for people.
The kit is built on the principle of detection of arsenic by a color reaction of arsenic and a halogen salt. When arsenic reacts with a halogen salt, there will be a color reaction (yellow precipitate), which can show the qualitative and quantitative analyses of arsenic. With the analyses, people can determine the presence and concentration of arsenic in the water.
Test kit users just need to put the indicator paper into the lid of the reactor-vase, pour the water sample and power into the vase as instructed, and then tightly cover the vase. If the indicator paper turns yellow, this means that the water is infected with arsenic.
The tests have shown that the kit quickly discovers arsenic in water with a high degree of accuracy of 90 percent within 15 minutes. The production cost of each test unit is 10-20,000 dong. The materials and the technology to manufacture the kits are all come from domestic sources.
The Ministry or Public Security has allowed to manufacture the arsenic test kit and applied in the professional operations. Also, the Ministry of Health has also allowed putting the product into circulation.
Dr Tran Dang, former Director of the Department of Food Hygiene and Safety under the Ministry of Health, said that it is necessary to push up the production of the kit for people’s use in a large scale. Scientifically, the kit meets the standards on arsenic testing set up by the Ministry of Health and it fits Vietnamese conditions.
Dang went on to say that the high accuracy degree and the simple way of using are the most outstanding points of the invention. Especially, as the technology, materials all can be found in Vietnam; therefore, it is absolutely feasible to use the kit on a large scale.
Many scientists have rung the alarm bell over the arsenic infected water situation in Vietnam, especially in the Red and Mekong Deltas. In many areas in the two regions, there are a high number of households using water from drilled wells for daily life. The surveys conducted by UNICEF in the two regions all have pointed out that the arsenic concentration in underground water is alarmingly high.
Arsenic is a powerful poison, which can kill people with just a very small dose. Therefore, it is very important to discover arsenic in the water source in order to have suitable solutions to deal with the water.
Using water from drilled wells is the only solution for many urbanites. In Hanoi, for example, local residents need about one million cubic meters of clean water a day, but water supply companies in the city can satisfy 50 percent of the demand.
(N.L.D)