Halvadakis, 2006; Lu et al., 2011). Experimental results indicated
that treating OMW using a clinoptilolite column (Table 1, and Figs. 2
and 5) was efficient in K removal and, consequently, decreasing the
OMW salinity. Using clinoptilolite for desalination is considered a
valid desalination method only for OMW, since Kþ is not a pre-
dominant cation for other wastewater, brackish groundwater, and
seawater. When used as a filtration media, clinoptilolite helps
remove even large amounts of Kþ from water through the cation
exchange process, where the K chemically bonds to the clinopti-
lolite molecules. In this study, 66.6% of K was removed by passing
OMW through the clinoptilolite column, similar to the findings of
Lu et al. (2011). The removal of ammonia by natural zeolitic ma-
terials has been widely investigated in recent decades. However, K
removal from saline water by clinoptilolite has not been widely
considered by scientists, because K does not exist in high concen-
trations in natural water and is not classified as a toxic element