As an effort for water resources conservation, a fixed-bed column was applied to remove nitrate from groundwater using pumice as adsorbent. The column performances were evaluated by varying the influent concentration (50 mg/L dan 80 mg/L) and influent flow rate (2 - 3 gpm/ft2 equal to 43–65 mL/min) with 85 cm of adsorbent bed depth. The results indicated that the increase in influent concentration increased the amount of nitrate and cause the earlier breakthrough time. Furthermore, the increase in influent flow rate caused the column exhaustion time to occur earlier resulted in the shortened lifespan of the column. The column system with a bed depth of 85 cm and flow rate of 2 gpm/ft2 (43 mL/min) for 80 mg/L of influent concentration showed the best nitrate uptake performance in this study with a total removal of 31.42% and adsorption capacity of 1.394 mg/g. The results revealed that the pumice in column has potential for nitrate removal from groundwater.
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