WASTEWATER DISINFECTION RESOURCES

WASTEWATER DISINFECTION SOLUTIONS

WASTEWATER DISINFECTION VIDEOS

Adam Jennings, Wastewater Applications Specialist for Hach, will be covering an application heavy perspective on phosphorus removal from the basics to field observations.

ABOUT WASTEWATER DISINFECTION

 

Wastewater disinfection takes place after primary, secondary and sometimes tertiary wastewater treatment. It is typically a final step to remove organisms from the treated water before the effluent is released back into the water system. Disinfection prevents the spread of waterborne diseases by reducing microbes and bacterial numbers to a regulated level.

A variety of physical and chemical methods are used to disinfect wastewater prior to it being released into natural waterways. Historically, the chemical agent of choice for municipal wastewater treatment has been chlorine, due to its disinfecting properties and low cost. However, the rising cost of chlorine and concerns that low chlorine concentrations can still be toxic to fish and other wildlife, has given rise to more physical methods of wastewater disinfection being adopted such as ozonation or ultraviolet (UV) light.  

The use of ozone as a disinfection agent has the added benefit of increasing the dissolved oxygen content of the treated wastewater. However, because the ozone has to be generated, ozonation can require prohibitive up-front capital expenditure compared to traditional chlorination. UV disinfection has been growing in popularity as a wastewater disinfection method, in large part because of the life-cycle economics of the equipment and the fact that, like ozone, there is no toxic residual.