Inactivation of E. coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa by electrochloration under bipolar pulsed polarization

Effects of process factors on the performance of electrochemical disinfection for wastewater in a continuous-flow cell reactor

Although electrochemical disinfection has been shown to be an effective approach to inactivate bacteria in saline water, the effects of process parameters and reactor design for its application in low-salinity water have not been well understood. In this study, factorial experiments were performed to investigate the direct and confounded effects of applied current (5-20 mA), contact time (2.5-20 min), anode surface area (185-370 cm²), and chloride concentration (50-400 mg L^-1) on the disinfection efficiency in fresh water and the secondary effluent of municipal wastewater. An electrochemical disinfection reactor cell with an internal volume of 75 cm³ was designed and fabricated. Residence time distribution analysis showed that the internal mixing of the reactor is similar to that of a dispersed plug-flow reactor. All studied process parameters showed significant effect on the kill efficiency, with the applied current and contact time having the most dominant effect. Although the effect of chloride concentration, which is responsible for electrochemical production of free chlorine in water, is statistically significant, it is not as prominent as those reported for high salinity water. A synergistic effect between chloride concentration and anode surface area was identified, leading to high kill efficiency (99.9%, 3 log kill) at low current density (0.0135 mA cm^-2). Response surface modeling results suggested that a scaled-up disinfection reactor can be designed using large anode surface area with long contact time for high chloride water (400 mg L^-1) or high current density with short contact time for low chloride water (50 mg L^-1). The power requirement of a portable system treating 37.85 m³ day^-1 (10,000 gpd) of municipal wastewater was estimated to be 1.9 to 8.3 kW to achieve a 3 log kill, depending on the reactor design.

Electrochemical disinfection of bacterial contamination: Effectiveness and modeling study of E. coli inactivation by electro-Fenton, electro-peroxi-coagulation and electrocoagulation

The present work undertakes an examination and comparison of electro-Fenton (EF), electro-peroxi-coagulation (EPC) and electrocoagulation (EC) applied to the E. coli inactivation in batch reactor. Indeed, platinum (Pt (anode), EF), stainless steel (SS (cathode), EF, EPC) and ordinary steel (Fe (anode), EPC) and aluminum (Al, EC) were used respectively. The current intensity, nature of electrolytic support, bacterial density and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) concentration are the most influenced study parameters. The obtained results showed that the high current intensities were significant for better inactivation and destruction of E. coli cells and caused a maximum of energy consumption. Both disinfection and energy consumption were improved by adding NaCl (or Na₂SO₄) in the three processes. Higher cellular density limited the electrochemical process and has negative effect in E. coli inactivation and the energy consumption. Only in the EPC case, the disinfection was considerably increased in function with H₂O₂ concentration. The modeling parameters of the inactivation kinetics of E. coli showed a good fitting of the established model (0.9560 < R² < 0.9979, 0.9267 < R² adjusted <0.997 and 0.0189 < RMSE <0.4821), faster kinetics of E. coli inactivation (significant values of K_max and Sl) in the case of high current intensity (0.2442<K_max<0.7440 and 10.50 < Sl < 24.69), the presence of chlorides or sulfates (0.6662<K_max<0.7818 and 11.67 < Sl < 18.59), and the sufficient H₂O₂ concentration (0.4712<K_max<0.9204 and 13.00 < Sl < 16.38). Moreover, the analysis of the results revealed that the EF is more effective in terms of the E. coli inactivation and the energy consumption comparatively to the other studied processes.