Effect of Desilication on Indonesian Natural Zeolite for the Enhancement of Ammonium Ion Removal from Aqueous Solutions

The removal of ammonium from wastewater is a crucial process to mitigate the potential environmental issues associated with high nitrogen content in the water bodies. Natural zeolite, particularly clinoptilolite, has shown promise as an adsorbent for this purpose due to its unique surface properties. While zeolite has been studied extensively in this context, the current work represents an exploration of natural zeolite from The Tanggamus District, Indonesia. The study evaluated the impact of the desilication process on the ammonium adsorption capacity of this natural zeolite. The zeolites were characterized using XRD, XRF, and SEM. Batch adsorption studies revealed that the modified zeolite showed promising ammonium adsorption performance up to 35.4 mg/g. The adsorption data fit well with the pseudo-second-order kinetics and Freundlich isotherm model, suggesting chemisorption as the predominant mechanism. The effect of temperature and thermodynamic parameters highlighted the exothermic nature of the adsorption process.