Nitrate removal from drinking water using a novel nanofiltration membrane

High levels of nitrate and nitrite are causing a major threat to drinking water production in many countries worldwide. Beside reverse osmosis which widely used for water treatment, recent researches indicate that nanofiltration (NF) is a promising and versatile technology to remove nitrate and nitrite from surface and ground water resources. However, a sufficient NF membrane plays a critical role in the removal efficiency. Within this work, therefore, a novel thin-film-composite (TFC) membrane was developed for testing nitrate and nitrite removal within a bench-scale study. The effect of operating variables, e.g. feed pressure and pH, were investigated. Results indicated that the developed membrane had the best performance when a feed pressure of 6bar with pH of 8 was used. At optimum conditions 72.1% nitrate rejection and 68.18% nitrite rejection were achieved, respectively

Keywords:

Drinking water , nitrate and nitrite , novel TFC membrane , nanofiltration , rejection