Mohammad Ali Niroomand - Department of Chemical Engineering, Shahroud Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahroud, I.R. IRAN
Reza Pooladi - Department of Chemical, Petroleum and Gas Engineering, University of Shiraz, Shiraz, I.R. IRAN
Sahebali Manafi - Department of Material Engineering, Shahroud Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahroud, I.R. IRAN
Mohammad Mahdi A. Shirazi - Membrane Separation Technology (MST) Group, Biofuels Research Team (BRT), Department of Microbial Biotechnology and Biosafety, Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran (ABRII), Karaj, I.R. IRAN

High levels of nitrate and nitrite are causing a major threat to drinking water production in many countries worldwide. Beside reverse osmosis which widely used for water treatment, recent researches indicate that nanofiltration (NF) is a promising and versatile technology to remove nitrate and nitrite from surface and ground water resources. However, a sufficient NF membrane plays a critical role in the removal efficiency. Within this work, therefore, a novel thin-film-composite (TFC) membrane was developed for testing nitrate and nitrite removal within a bench-scale study. The effect of operating variables, e.g. feed pressure and pH, were investigated. Results indicated that the developed membrane had the best performance when a feed pressure of 6bar with pH of 8 was used. At optimum conditions 72.1% nitrate rejection and 68.18% nitrite rejection were achieved, respectively

Drinking water, nitrate and nitrite, novel TFC membrane, nanofiltration, rejection