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This study investigates the effects of very low concentrations of ClO(2) applied in drinking water practice on the inactivation of bacteriophage MS2. Concentrations of 0.5 mg/L, 0.1 mg/L and 0.02 mg/L ClO(2) inactivated at least 5 log units of MS2 after an exposure time of approximately 20, 50 and 300 min respectively. When the ClO(2) concentration was as low as 0.005 mg/L, inactivation of 1 log unit MS2 was observed after 300 min exposure. Increasing the contact time to 24 h did not increase the inactivation any further. Non-linear inactivation kinetics (tailing) were observed for all conditions tested. Repeated addition of MS2 to the reactor showed that tailing was not caused by a reduction of the biocidal effect of ClO(2) during disinfection. The Modified Chick-Watson, the Efficiency Factor Hom (EFH) model and the Modified Cerf model, a modification of the two-fraction Cerf model, were fitted to the non-linear inactivation curves. Both the EFH and the modified Cerf model did fit accurately to the inactivation data of all experiments. The good fit of the Modified Cerf model supports the hypothesis of the presence of two subpopulations. Our study showed that ClO(2) is an effective disinfectant against model organism MS2, also at the low concentrations applied in water treatment practice. The inactivation kinetics followed a biphasic pattern due to the presence of a more ClO(2)-resistant subpopulation of MS2 phages, either caused by population heterogeneity or aggregation/adhesion of MS2., (© 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) adsorption filtration is commonly used in drinking water treatment to remove NOM and micro-pollutants and on base of the process conditions a certain capacity to eliminate pathogenic micro-organisms was expected. The experiences with the mandatory quantitative microbial risk assessment of Dutch drinking water revealed a lack of knowledge on the elimination capacity of this process for pathogens. The objective of the current study was to determine the capacity of GAC filtration to remove MS2, Escherichia coli and spores of Clostridium bifermentans as process indicators for pathogens and more directly of (oo)cysts of Cryptosporidium parvum and Giardia lamblia. Challenge tests with fresh and loaded GAC were performed in pilot plant GAC filters supplied with pre-treated surface water at a contact time which was half of the contact time of the full-scale GAC filters. MS2 phages were not removed and the removal of E. coli and the anaerobic spores was limited ranging from < or =0.1-1.1 log. The (oo)cysts of C. parvum and G. lamblia, however, were removed significantly (1.3-2.7 log). On base of the results of the experiments and the filtration conditions the removal of the indicator bacteria and (oo)cysts was largely attributed to attachment. The model of the Colloid Filtration Theory was used to describe the removal of the dosed biocolloids in the GAC filters, but the results demonstrated that there is a lack of quantitative knowledge about the influence of collector characteristics on the two major CFT parameters, the single collector and the sticking efficiency., (Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

To determine the disinfection efficacy of ozonation, water companies can apply several disinfection calculation methods. The goal of this study was to evaluate the use of the T10 and continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) method to extrapolate inactivation rates of ozone sensitive microorganisms observed in laboratory tests to full-scale ozonation in drinking water treatment. The inactivation efficacy of the ozonation at the Amsterdam water treatment works was assessed by determining Escherichia coli concentrations in large volume samples before and after ozonation over a period of 1 year. The inactivation of dosed E. coli WR1 was tested in a bench-scale dissolved ozone plug flow reactor (DOPFR) on the same feed water as the full-scale ozonation in which a concentrated ozone solution in Milli-Q water was dosed. Applying the T10 method on the inactivation rates observed in the DOPFR strongly overestimated the inactivation capacity of the full-scale ozonation. The expected inactivation based on the CSTR method (LT2ESWTR) approached the observed inactivation at full-scale. Therefore, the CSTR method should be preferred to calculate inactivation of ozone sensitive organisms such as E. coli, viruses, Giardia and Campylobacter by full-scale ozonation.

UV disinfection technology is of growing interest in the water industry since it was demonstrated that UV radiation is very effective against (oo)cysts of Cryptosporidium and Giardia, two pathogenic micro-organisms of major importance for the safety of drinking water. Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment, the new concept for microbial safety of drinking water and wastewater, requires quantitative data of the inactivation or removal of pathogenic micro-organisms by water treatment processes. The objective of this study was to review the literature on UV disinfection and extract quantitative information about the relation between the inactivation of micro-organisms and the applied UV fluence. The quality of the available studies was evaluated and only high-quality studies were incorporated in the analysis of the inactivation kinetics. The results show that UV is effective against all waterborne pathogens. The inactivation of micro-organisms by UV could be described with first-order kinetics using fluence-inactivation data from laboratory studies in collimated beam tests. No inactivation at low fluences (offset) and/or no further increase of inactivation at higher fluences (tailing) was observed for some micro-organisms. Where observed, these were included in the description of the inactivation kinetics, even though the cause of tailing is still a matter of debate. The parameters that were used to describe inactivation are the inactivation rate constant k (cm(2)/mJ), the maximum inactivation demonstrated and (only for bacterial spores and Acanthamoeba) the offset value. These parameters were the basis for the calculation of the microbial inactivation credit (MIC="log-credits") that can be assigned to a certain UV fluence. The most UV-resistant organisms are viruses, specifically Adenoviruses, and bacterial spores. The protozoon Acanthamoeba is also highly UV resistant. Bacteria and (oo)cysts of Cryptosporidium and Giardia are more susceptible with a fluence requirement of <20 mJ/cm(2) for an MIC of 3 log. Several studies have reported an increased UV resistance of environmental bacteria and bacterial spores, compared to lab-grown strains. This means that higher UV fluences are required to obtain the same level of inactivation. Hence, for bacteria and spores, a correction factor of 2 and 4 was included in the MIC calculation, respectively, whereas some wastewater studies suggest that a correction of a factor of 7 is needed under these conditions. For phages and viruses this phenomenon appears to be of little significance and for protozoan (oo)cysts this aspect needs further investigation. Correction of the required fluence for DNA repair is considered unnecessary under the conditions of drinking water practice (no photo-repair, dark repair insignificant, esp. at higher (60 mJ/cm(2)) fluences) and probably also wastewater practice (photo-repair limited by light absorption). To enable accurate assessment of the effective fluence in continuous flow UV systems in water treatment practice, biodosimetry is still essential, although the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) improves the description of reactor hydraulics and fluence distribution. For UV systems that are primarily dedicated to inactivate the more sensitive pathogens (Cryptosporidium, Giardia, pathogenic bacteria), additional model organisms are needed to serve as biodosimeter.

Modelling the discharge of parasitic protozoa into surface water and the dispersion in rivers and streams gives insight into the contribution of the different sources of environmental contamination and in the transmission of these organisms from the point of discharge to drinking water abstraction points and bathing sites. We tested the applicability of emission (PROMISE) and dispersion (WATNAT) models developed for chemical pollutants to describe the environmental behaviour of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in the Netherlands. The annual load of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in domestic wastewater was 3.2 x 10(13) and 3.8 x 10(14) respectively. The majority (85%) of the Cryptosporidium oocysts was discharged with effluent of wastewater treatment plants. while the majority (82%) of the Giardia cysts was discharged with untreated wastewater discharges and sewer overflows. The estimated annual import through the river Rhine and Meuse was 3.2 x 1014 Cryptosporidium oocysts and 2.1 x 10(15) Giardia cysts, of which the river Rhine contributed 87 and 66%, respectively. This outweighed the total load of the discharges of treated and untreated wastewater in the Netherlands. The combination of PROMISE and WATNAT predicted concentrations of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in surface water that were in the same order of magnitude as the concentrations that were observed at 5 of the 6 sites compared. At a site with primarily agricultural contamination, the models predicted concentrations that were 1 10log-unit lower than the observed concentrations. This is a first step in the direction of a quantitative description of the transmission cycle of Cryptosporidum and Giardia through water. The use of these models combines observational occurrence data and experimental data from laboratory survival studies into a single integrated description. The description needs further improvement by incorporation of agricultural run-off and increasing the number and time frame of input monitoring data.