AMMONIUM REMOVAL FROM SECONDARY EFFLUENTS BY SELECTIVE ION-EXCHANGE

Abstract

Early in the developing science of water pollution control, the presence of ammonia in groundand surface water supplies was regarded as a strong indication of recent pollution (1). Klein (2) has stated that am monia concentrations of greater than 0.2 mg/1 are a strong indication of pollution by wastewater. More ex plicitly, McKee and Wolf (3) state that: The generally accepted limit for free ammonia for sanitary purity of water supplies is between 0.05 and 0.10 mg/1. Excess of this value ren ders the water suspect of recent pollu tion. While ammonia-nitrogen is commonly observed in surface waters, it is not found in groundwaters ex cept in small amounts under anaerobic conditions (4). As water quality science progressed, it became apparent that the presence of ammonia in water has far more seri ous implications than merely serving as an index of recent pollution. It was demonstrated that: