A comparative study on the pulsed UV and the low-pressure UV inactivation of a range of microbial species in water

Research into alternative methods of disinfecting water and wastewater has proven necessary due to the emergence of chlorine-resistant organisms and the disinfection byproducts associated with chlorine use. The use of UV light to inactivate microbial species has proven effective, however; standard UV lamps have proven to be less effective in their ability to inactivate parasites and bacterial endospores in water treatment settings. Pulsed UV (PUV) light may potentially provide a novel alternative to water and wastewater disinfection. Research outlined in this study assesses the potential of a novel PUV system for the rapid and reproducible inactivation of a range of test species including Bacillus endospores. In comparison to standard low-pressure (LP) UV lamps, this PUV system provided significantly higher levels of inactivation for all test species. Furthermore, there was a remarkable decrease in time needed to obtain significant inactivation rates following treatment with PUV compared to LP-UV. With the PUV system, a 70-second treatment time (7.65 μJ/cm²) resulted in similar inactivation rates of Bacillus endospores to that of the LP-UV inactivation of their vegetative counterpart. Also, at PUV doses exceeding 4.32 J/cm², there was not a significant difference in the PUV inactivation of Bacillus endospores in the absence or presence of 10 ppm organic matter. However, the presence of organic matter resulted in a significant reduction in microbial inactivation for all treatment doses using the LP-UV system. The findings of this study suggest that PUV technology may provide a rapid effective method for the disinfection of water and wastewater.