Defluoridation in drinking waters

Although water supplies containing excessive amount of fluoride are general ly very rare worldwide, there are locations in Turkey where drinking water contains very high fluoride concentrations. Especially in the middle and ea stern part of Turkey, some mineral and drinking waters contain very high fl uoride concentrations. It is a well known fact that drinking water exceedin g the critical fluoride concentration (1 mg F-/L) may cause serious dental and skeletal damages. In this study, various techniques were evaluated to find the most suitable solution for defluoridation for these regions, which have high concentratio ns of fluoride in their water supplies. For this purpose, various chemical agents including locally produced alumina were investigated. Locally produc ed alumina gave promising and economically sound results in terms of defluo ridation capacity and availability.