2.1. STEEPLE Analysis Before launching any project, regardless of the nature of its application, a thorough analysis of various aspects surrounding the success of the project’s implementation should be conducted. Hence, the STEEPLE analysis is a tool to investigate the Societal, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal and Ethical components of the subject in question.
2.1.1. Societal Since arsenic water contamination crisis is affecting millions of individuals in Bangladesh, the potential societal impact of the project lies in its contribution to the mitigation efforts to supply the affected areas with safe water. Arsenic is a toxic substance that leads to several diseases, and in cases of extreme exposure, to death. It goes without saying that a society where health problems are extensive, all other components of the affected community are jeopardized. The workforce will certainly decrease which will jeopardize the prosperity of this generation, and the deteriorating health and well-being of youth and children will dangerously threaten future generations. Thus, decreasing the individual’s intake of the contaminated water, not only helps to prevent health issues, but insures the stability and development of an entire nation.
2.1.2. Technological Scientific advancements to achieve novel technologies, that do not only serve the purpose of providing safe drinking water but also that take into consideration the environmental impact of this operation, are unequivocally valuable. Biosorption is one example of such advancements in the water treatment field. Not only it aims delivering a decent quality of water with an affordable price, but it also targets the fulfillment of a sustainable lifestyle for its users by exploiting the use of available waste to obtain potable water.
2.1.3. Economical This particular aspect is one of the main triggers of the work on this biofilter. As mentioned previously, there is a gap in the available technologies for As removal in water. There are either advanced mechanisms through which a high level of water quality is achieved but that imposes an immense financial toll on the users, or relatively modest technologies dedicated specifically to rural areas of Bangladesh whose efficiency and availability are not ideal. Hence, the choice of the final design of the filter (based on biosorption) will be decided upon with the following aims in mind: providing the Bangladeshi citizens with a natural sustainable solution that will both contribute to their independence in their water filtration needs, and reduce the budget dedicated for water treatment since most of the affected areas are economically-underprivileged regions.
2.1.4. Environmental The sustainable component of this filter partially relies on its environmental friendly feature. This project is providing environmental relief on three levels. First, it is treating the naturally contaminated groundwater which falls into the water quality improvement. Second, it uses an available waste as a filtration media, thus contributing to the utilization and better management of waste. Third, unlike several other arsenic water treating technologies, biosorption generates a relatively small amount of toxic sludge, which enables the control of its extent and decreases the potential of secondary pollution. Therefore, this project ensures an optimal environmental footprint.
2.1.5. Political The bottleneck of the ongoing water crisis in Bangladesh is partially due to political factors. For several decades, governmental efforts have been focused to mitigate the contamination and provide health services for the ones diagnosed with health issues related to As. However, the limited investment budgets along with other priorities of the nation (such as education, refugees, climate change, etc.) put the country under an increasing pressure in order to solve this problem. For this reason, efficient and cheap filters are of tremendous value on the political level. This biofilter could enable the government to effectively use the limited available budget to reach multiple affected areas in Bangladesh.
2.1.6. Legal The legal aspect of water quality has certainly evolved since the discovery of the groundwater contamination. Bangladesh designated several limit values concerning drinking water quality, fixating As level at 0.05 mg/L. This standard limit will be the maximum As concentration to be detected in the water treated by the designed filter. Moreover, filtering technologies aiming commercial marketing have to follow a governmental approval process. As mentioned previously, only four filtering technologies are approved by Bangladesh in this context. Since this filter is at the prototype level, the pursuit of an official approval could be sought in the future if the project reaches the level of a fully functioning built prototype operated on the field.
2.1.7. Ethical The ethical impact of this project shall be sustained by making sure of the accuracy of the research done in this field. Despite the urgent need of a water filter, it is an utmost priority to insure the delivery of a drinking water quality that shall not jeopardize the well-being of its users. It is imperative to perform rigorous analyses of the designed filter and testing it with groundwater before deploying it for public use.
2.2. Biosorbent Selection As mentioned earlier, the aim of this paper is to design a water filter to be used in areas in Bangladesh where As contamination is above the approved limits, based on the biosorption process by employing an efficient cheap biosorbent. Hence, the first step of this design was identifying suitable biomass for our project. Several requirements had to be met by the biomass through two different analyses.