The level of nitrates from groundwater from Cluj County and other areas from Romania have increased values, exceeding or getting close to the allowed limit values, putting in danger human and animal heath. In this study we used granular activated carbon adsorbent (GAC) for nitrate (NO(-)3) removal for the production of drinking water from groundwater of the Cluj county. The influences of the contact time, nitrate initial concentration, and adsorbent concentration have been studied. We determined the equilibrium adsorption capacity of GAC, used for NO(-)3 removal and we applied the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. Ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were used for process characterization. We also determined: pH, conductivity, Total Dissolved Solids and Total Hardness. The GAC adsorbents have excellent capacities of removing nitrate from groundwater from Cluj County areas.
A B S T R A C TThis paper focuses on a comparative study regarding the performance of natural zeolite from Mirşid (NZM) and granular activated carbon (GAC), respectively, for treatment process of contaminated groundwater from Cȃpuş, Cluj region for nitrate removal. The effect of pH, conductivity, contact time, and nitrate concentration have been studied. The Langmuir and Freundlich models were used to fit the experimental data and these showed good correlations with the Freundlich model, providing a better description of the equilibrium (higher R 2 value). Textural analysis was employed in order to determine the specific surface area, and pore size distribution of the used activated carbon and natural zeolite. The adsorbents (GAC and NZM) were characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and x-ray powder diffraction.
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