Modeling Microbial Transport and Inactivation in an Open Channel UV Reactor at Various Hydraulic Regimes

Due to potential shortages of freshwater especially in arid and semi-arid regions, treatment of wastewater is increasingly being considered as an alternative to conventional water sources such as surface waters and groundwater. As the potential for human exposure to pathogens in the reclaimed water has been a concern for regulators, treatment standards must be stringent and disinfection system carefully validated and properly operated.

In the last decade, ultraviolet disinfection in open-channel flows has emerged as a “green” technology with no harmful chemicals used for treatment and no significant disinfection byproducts left in the effluent. Recently, detail understanding of disinfection processes has made possible through the use of computational models.

However, predictive models for open channel UV reactors have been overly simplified; as a results, important issues such as kinetics of organism inactivation as free-surface transport phenomena have not been addressed to date. This study will investigate the role of microbial transport and inactivation occurring at the free surface as well as the impact of wastewater quality variability on UV disinfection kinetics and continuous flow reactor performance.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Ajay K. Ray

Student:

Botao Peng and Wenjun Sun

Partner:

Trojan Technologies

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Environmental industry

University:

Western University