Investigation of Nitrate Reduction from Drain Water Using Modified Zeolite in Batch and Dynamic Experiments

Quantity lack of required water resources for agriculture and quality decreasing caused by entrance of poor quality drain water resulted environmental threatens in the resources. Inappropriate application of nitrogen fertilizers that are one of the most important required nutrients for plants causes entrance of nitrogen components more than allowed limits to the water resources. Modified natural zeolite usage for nitratereduction from aqueous solutions in batch and dynamic experiments investigated in this research. Equilibrium time and the amount of nitrate adsorption resulted from physical model were compared to the results of batch tests. Equilibrium time resulted from both conditions was about 60 minutes but the portions of nitrate adsorption andremoval percent were different. While the different observed results caused by physical drain channel model، effects of two flow rates including 0. 05 and 0. 08 (lit/s) and three sorption box widths including 2، 3 and 5 cm on nitrate removal were surveyed. Results showed 8 to 16 percent better zeolite efficiency in more flow rate. About 19 percent removal increase observed by reduction of adsorption box widths from 0. 33 to 0. 13 of adsorption box length.