Validation of medium-pressure UV disinfection reactors by Lagrangian actinometry using dyed microspheres

A review of the fluence determination methods for UV reactors: Ensuring the reliability of UV disinfection

Ultraviolet (UV) is a green and effective technique that has been widely applied in water disinfection. The reliability of UV disinfection is an important issue, in which the aim is to ensure the delivery of adequate real-time fluence in a UV reactor. Unlike chemical disinfection systems whose disinfection dose can be directly measured with disinfectant residuals, UV is a physical process and the determination of fluence is complicated in practical reactors. To date, several fluence determination methods have been developed, including conventional methods such as biodosimetry and model simulation, as well as emerging methods such as dyed microsphere method and the model-detector method. However, a systematic and comprehensive review of these methods is still needed to discuss the attributes and application scenarios of each method. In this review, we summarized the principal theories, procedures, applications, and pros/cons of these fluence determination methods. Further, the selection and application of appropriate fluence determination methods were discussed based on different purposes (e.g., feedbacks for reactor design, evidence for third-party validation, as well as on-site determination and long-term monitoring of fluence). Overall, this review could provide useful information and new insights regarding the application of current fluence determination methods to ensure the reliability of UV disinfection.

Enhancement of micropollutant degradation in UV/H2O2 process via iron-containing coagulants

The low molar absorption coefficient of H₂O₂ limits the ultraviolet (UV)/H₂O₂ process, making it a desirable target to enhance the UV/H₂O₂ process for organic micropollutant degradation. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of iron-containing coagulants (Fe-coagulants) on micropollutant degradation by UV/H₂O₂ process. Three typical Fe-coagulants (i.e., polymeric ferric sulfate, polymeric aluminum ferric sulfate, and FeCl₃) exhibited the enhancement of sulfamethazine degradation during the UV/H₂O₂ process. The maximum increasing ratio of the degradation rate constant reached 40%. The pH and Fe-coagulant concentration effects, as well as residual H₂O₂ were examined. The principal mechanism of micropollutant degradation enhancement via the Fe-coagulants was the photo-Fenton-like reaction between Fe(III) on the Fe-coagulant surface and H₂O₂ under UV irradiation. Then the influence of Fe-coagulant particle size was discussed. Smaller particles (<0.22 μm), with a lower iron content, a larger specific surface area, and a stronger optical scattering effect, exhibited a greater enhancement on the UV/H₂O₂ process as compared with larger particles (>0.22 μm). Finally, the enhancement effect of the Fe-coagulants was verified on two water samples from a water treatment plant, which were either pre-coagulation or sand filtered samples. This study explored an existing heterogeneous catalysis process in drinking water treatment, which provides additional information for coagulant selection and improvements to the treatment process for micropollutant removal.

Numerical and experimental studies of water disinfection in UV reactors

Performance of UV reactors for water disinfection is investigated in this paper. Both experimental and numerical studies are performed on base reactor LP24. Enterobacteria phage MS2 is chosen as the challenge microorganism in the experiments. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the effect of different parameters, i.e. flow rate and UV transmission, on the reactor performance. Simulation is carried out based on the commercial software ANSYS FLUENT with user defined functions (UDFs) implemented. The UDF is programmed to calculate UV dose absorbed by different microorganisms along their flow trajectories. The effect with boundary layer mesh and without boundary layer mesh for LP24 is studied. The results show that the inclusion of boundary layer mesh does not have much effect on the reactor performance in terms of reduction equivalent dose (RED). The numerical results agree well with the experimental measurements, hence validating the numerical model. With this achieved, the numerical model is applied to study other scaled reactors: LP12, LP40, LP60 and LP80. Comparisons show that LP40 has the highest RED and log inactivation among all the reactors while LP80 has the lowest RED and log inactivation.

Evaluating ultraviolet sensitivity of adventitious agents in biopharmaceutical manufacturing

Incidents of contamination in biopharmaceutical production have highlighted the need to apply alternative or supplementary disinfection techniques. Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation is a well-established method for inactivating a broad range of microorganisms, and is therefore a good candidate as an orthogonal technique for disinfection. To apply UV as a safeguard against adventitious agents, the UV sensitivity of these target agents must be known so that the appropriate dose of UV may be applied to achieve the desired level of inactivation. This document compiles and reviews experimentally derived 254 nm sensitivities of organisms relevant to biopharmaceutical production. In general, different researchers have found similar sensitivity values despite a lack of uniformity in experimental design or standardized quantification techniques. Still, the lack of consistent methodologies has led to suspicious UV susceptibilities in certain instances, justifying the need to create a robust collection of sensitivity values that can be used in the design and sizing of UV systems for the inactivation of adventitious agents.