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The drinking water industry is faced with microbial contaminants that are challenging toremove or inactivate with conventional treatment technologies. Specialized and oftencostly technologies are required to treat particularly challenging target compounds suchas protozoan pathogens (e.g., Cryptosporidium parvum) and viruses (e.g., adenovirus).Pulsed arc electrohydraulic discharge (PAED) is a direct plasma technology that has thepotential to treat and/or inactive these microorganisms. Plasma technologies have thecapability to treat water by several mechanisms including: shock waves, ultraviolet (UV) irradiation,radical reactions, electron processes, ionic reactions, and thermal dissociation (Chang etal., 2002). The advantage of utilizing direct plasma technologies such as PAED is thatthey are capable of simultaneously taking advantage of all of these mechanisms.Preliminary experiments using a laboratory-scale PAED were conducted to evaluateEscherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis inactivation with PAED. Preliminary dataindicated that the mean logsub10/sub inactivation of E. coli was 0, 2.6, 3.3, and 3.6 log atdetention times of 0, 0.8, 1.5, and 5.8 minutes respectively. The frequency ofelectrohydraulic discharges was changed for a second trial yielding similar inactivation ofE. coli of 0, 0.06, 1.4, and 2.82 log with corresponding detention times of 0, 0.3, 0.9, and1.3 minutes, respectively. The mean B. subtilis inactivation after 0.9 and 1.3 minutes was3.5 and 4.6 log, respectively.Pulsed arc electrohydraulic discharge offers an innovative approach that may offerconcurrent treatment of microbial and chemical target compounds. The emergence ofPAED technology as a viable treatment option will offer another effective barrier in amulti-barrier treatment system to ensure public health needs are met. Includes 8 references, figures.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 06/17/2004 Number of Pages: 6File Size: 1 file , 360 KB