The ground water ammonium sorption onto Croatian and Serbian clinoptilolite

Abstract

The removal of ammonium from the Valpovo region ground water (VGW) with the use of natural clinoptilolite samples from the Donje Jesenje deposit (Croatia) and the Zlatokop deposit in Vranjska Banja (Serbia) was studied. The natural Serbian (SZ) and Croatian zeolites (CZ) were transformed to the Na-form (Na-CZ and Na-SZ) in order to increase the exchange capacity of zeolite. The CZ and SZ theoretic ammonium sorption capacities were 24.24 mg NH(4)(+)/g CZ and 32.55 mg NH(4)(+)/g SZ, respectively. The application of natural and Na-form of clinoptilolite for efficient removal of ammonium ions from VGW was further investigated. For that purpose, the four "filter guard" vessels filled with zeolite samples were set in parallel in the ground water purification pilot plant. The complete ammonium removal, with the use of SZ and Na-SZ was achieved during 20 h. After having observed saturation of clinoptilolite, the samples were regenerated with the use of 2 mol/L NaCl, and reused for determination of ammonium sorption efficiency. The regenerated samples showed to be still very efficient for NH(4)(+) removal and, in addition, the SZ was shown as superior for ammonium removal in comparison to the CZ.