An anion exchange resin (NDP-2) was synthesized for selective nitrate removal in the binary co-existence systems. The characterization of NDP-2 have been performed by FT-IR, SEM and BET surface area analyses. The results showed that the amounts of nitrate sorbed onto NDP-2 were the highest compared to D201 and Purolite A 300 (A 300) resin at equilibrium, and its sorption behavior followed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm model well. Furthermore, both the pseudo-first order and the pseudo-second order kinetic models showed well fitting about the process of nitrate sorbed onto NDP-2 resin. Attractively, NDP-2 resin demonstrated the more preferable absorption toward nitrate than the commercial D201 and Purolite A 300 in the presence of competing ions, such as SO42-, Cl- and HCO3-, in aqueous solution. Therefore, NDP-2 resin would be a promising adsorbent to improve removal of nitrate from contaminated drinking water resources. Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.