Economical Nitrate Reduction From Drinking Water Sources

Nitrates and associated contaminants in groundwater have increased greatly during the last fifty years as they have in the rest of the world. Nitrate poses a quantitative threat to United States groundwater that is greater than that of other contaminants with greater public attention. Nitrate has a high potential to migrate to groundwater and remain there because it is a stable, non-volatile, highly soluble compound that does not bind to soil. Between 1992 and 1999, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collected water samples from 1,497 public and domestic wells from across the U.S. Nitrate, often combined with pesticides such as atrazine, metolachlor, and deethylatrazine, was present in 28 % of the samples and exceeded health criteria in about 13 % of the samples. The primary objective of the project is to demonstrate on a bench-scale that nitrate can be treated to below regulatory standards at an economical cost in actual field samples. Field samples are expected to contain considerable concentrations of salts (TDS) and naturally occurring and anthropogenic organic chemicals. Information from the bench-scale testing will be directed to allow valid engineering scale up evaluations. This will define whether the process can be economically and qualitatively competitive treatment process for nitrate-containing drinking waters.