Nitrate filtration by deep water culture

Sustainable water supply is crucial to meet the increasing demand for drinking water and water resources worldwide. A serious challenge in this context is the presence of high nitrate levels in water sources due to agricultural activities and human impacts.

Nitrate is a common anion found in water as a result of agricultural fertilization and other human activities. While nitrate itself is not harmful to health, it can cause health problems at high concentrations in drinking water sources or industrial water reservoirs. The limit value in groundwater is 50 mg/L according to the European Union’s Groundwater Directive 2006/118/EC, and countermeasures are to be initiated at a value of 37.5 mg/L. Most methods to reduce the nitrate level, however, are relatively expensive.

One promising method for reducing nitrate levels in water could be the cultivation of plants in deep-water culture systems. In this approach, plant roots are placed in containers filled with water, whereby the plants are able to absorb nitrate from the water and use it for their own growth. In this way, an environmentally friendly alternative for the food supply by cultivating vegetable plants could be achieved in addition to the actual goal of processing groundwater and drinking water. The present experiment aims to test the effectiveness of deep-water culture as a method for reducing high nitrate levels in water. Several series of tests were carried out with different nitrate concentrations and are presented in this poster, giving an overview of possibilities for nitrite reduction and the limits of the measurements.