Online course
8. Wastewater Disinfection
This course presents a comprehensive summary of the topic of wastewater disinfection, starting with a description of the concept of indicator organisms. The physical chemistry of halogens (chlorine) and peracids (peracetic acid) are presented, as well as the fundamental principles of photochemistry that underpin the use of ultraviolet (UV) radiation as a disinfectant. Students will gain an understanding of models used to simulate disinfection kinetics, a comparison of disinfection kinetics among common disinfectants, as well as the incorporation of these kinetic models into overall process models. Furthermore, students will become familiar with deterministic and probabilistic process models, the range of contemporary disinfection applications in wastewater treatment (and with other media), and future directions in the field. The course also includes practical examples of applications of disinfection in wastewater treatment. By the end of the course, students will be able to deal with the subject of wastewater disinfection with increased confidence.
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Course information
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Learning Objectives
After participating in this class, students should be able to:
- Describe the characteristics of microbial indicators as well as the strengths and weaknesses of common indicators that are used in contemporary practice.
- Apply the fundamental principles of physical chemistry to simulate the distribution of halogens (chlorine) and peracids (peracetic acid) among their acid and conjugate base forms.
- Predict the extent of disinfection in batch reactor using basic disinfection kinetics models.
- Implement the principles of stoichiometry and physical chemistry to calculate the amount of dechlorinating agent required to decompose residual chlorine.
- Apply the principles of photochemistry to predict the rate and extent of a photochemical reaction.
- Describe common sources of UV radiation and their respective output spectra.
- Describe deterministic and probabilistic process models that are used to simulate disinfection process dynamics.
- Demonstrate familiarity with common modes of wastewater disinfection.
- Demonstrate familiarity with common wastewater disinfection contact chamber designs.
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Syllabus
This course covers the following topics:
- Background/Introduction
- Microbial Indicators
- Halogen Physical Chemistry
- Inorganic Chloramines
- Dechlorination
- Disinfection with Halogens, Mechanisms and Kinetics
- Disinfection with Peracids, Formation/Degradation
- Disinfection with UV Radiation, Laws of Photochemistry
- Disinfection with UV Radiation, Photochemical Kinetics
- Disinfection with UV Radiation, Sources of Germicidal (UV-C) Radiation
- Disinfection with UV Radiation, Mechanisms and Kinetics
- DBP Formation, Implications for Toxicity
- Process Modeling: IDDF, CFD-E Models, Probabilistic Models
- Disinfection Applications, Case Studies
- Contact Chamber Design
- Future Directions
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Organization
Courses in this series consist of video lectures, presentation slides, reading materials, exercises, and assignments with solutions. In principle, each video presentation has its complementary presentation slides. All videos are available for viewing in the section “Video-recorded presentations”. The materials are packaged in three (.zip) files, namely, the “Videos”, the “Presentations”, and the “Documents”. Files may be of considerable size, so you need to ensure that your computer has sufficient bandwidth and capacity for downloading. This course is based on the chapter in the book “Biological Wastewater Treatment: Principles, Modeling, and Design” 2nd edition (Chen et al., 2020). To check and expand your knowledge on the subject, it is recommended to study the corresponding chapter in the complementary book “Biological Wastewater Treatment: Examples and Exercises” (Lopez-Vazquez et al., 2023). The two chapters are open access and available in the section “Documents (.zip) on this webpage. For those interested in related experimental methods, it is advised to consult relevant methods in the book “Experimental Methods in Wastewater Treatment” (Van Loosdrecht et al., 2016). The complete book and video-recorded experimentation are available on this website as a separate course (https://studybwwt.online/courses/experimental-methods-in-wastewater-treatment/).
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Delivery Method
This course is currently designed for a SELF-STUDY mode. It is FREE, and does not include guidance, support, exams, assessment, and certification. It is possible that shortly, the series (or its parts) will be adopted by institutions that may deliver the guided version, including certification. As soon as this is the case, it will be advertised on this website.
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Open Access
The content is available for free unlimited access and use, consistent with Global Sanitation Graduate School’s commitment to ensuring open access to information and knowledge. Please note that the video materials fall under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), presentations under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), readers (OA books of IWA Publishing) under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), and other readers under the license specified by the publisher. Although care has been taken to ensure the integrity and quality of these materials and information, no responsibility is assumed by the author(s), Global Sanitation Graduate School, or IHE Delft Institute for Water Education for any damage to property or persons as a result of the use of these materials and/or the information contained herein.
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