Water used for drinking. water can come from groundwater, river water, lake water, or swamp water. Natural disturbances and environmental pollution have caused the amount and quality of surface water reserves to decrease. Water from various natural sources, especially those that have been polluted, needs to be treated before it can be used as raw material for drinking water. The problem of water turbidity can be eliminated by deposition, either by means of gravity, filtering, or addition of alum Al2 (SO4) 3.
Through sedimentation and filtering, cloudy water is converted into clear water. Pathogenic microorganisms that may be present in water can be killed by the addition of chlorine. However, the problem of odor and the content of several types of dissolved salts, which are undesirable and which can reduce the quality of raw materials for drinking water, has yet to be resolved. The presence of several types of salt in water can come from soil minerals/rocks dissolved in water or seawater intrusion to land.
According to previous research results, activated natural zeolite can be used as an adsorbent to absorb several types of ions and absorb carotene dyes. It has been successful in activating natural zeolite and used as an adsorbent to reduce the smell of ammonia in water. The acidity level (pH) and the color of industrial wastewater can be reduced through waste treatment with activated natural zeolite adsorbent. Water treatment using zeolite adsorbent can also significantly reduce levels of Fe and Mn ions in water.
The activated natural zeolite was tested to reduce the salt content in the water. As a model of water containing salt, in this study, the NaCl solution model, with a concentration of 0.1 molars, was used, either separately for each type of solution or in a mixture of the three types of solutions.
The experiment was carried out by means of direct mixing and flow in the column. Apart from the salt solution model, the actual ground and surface water samples were also used at other experimental stages. By using the salt solution model and through direct mixing, into 20 ml of NaCl solution, 2 g of activated dry zeolite powder was added, stirred for 2 hours, and filtered to separate the zeolite from the solution.
Natural zeolite that is not activated and is only dried at 110o C can reduce the salt content by 4%. Inactivated natural zeolite calcination can increase the decrease in salt content, this is the better if the zeolite powder is added to the saline solution which has been calcined at high temperature.