Pollution of nitrate in Moroccan ground water: removal by electrodialysis

Nitrate content in surface water and especially in ground water have increased in Morocco and other areas of the world. Several processes including degradation processes and separation processes can remove nitrate from water. As separating processes, an electrodialysis operation was performed to remove nitrate from a ground water. Preliminary a brief reviews of the nitrate ground water pollution in Morocco was presented. A preselection of several commercial membranes was carried out to determine the best anionic exchange membrane for nitrate removal. The selected membrane transports anions in the following order: NO3- > Cl- > HCO3- > SO42-. The results show that a desired product water quality can easily be obtained by electrodialysis. The electrodialysis is a simple process to remove nitrate from ground water.