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The problem of biological invasions attributed to ballast water release is an ongoing problem that threatens ecosystems and human health. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation has been increasingly used for ballast water treatment mainly due to the advantages of short contact time and minimized harmful disinfection by products. In this study, the impact of salinity on the inactivation of Vibrio cholerae (NCTC 7253) was examined, and comparison of inactivation level and disinfection kinetics after medium-pressure (MP) (1 kW) and low-pressure (LP) (10 W) UV irradiation was made. MP UV exposure resulted in higher inactivation efficacy against V. cholerae than LP UV exposure especially at lower UV doses (≤3 mJ cm−2) and salinity had a negative impact on both MP and LP UV disinfection, especially at higher UV doses (≥3 mJ cm−2 for MP and ≥4 mJ cm−2 for LP). To understand the mechanisms of salinity effect on V. cholerae, the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was employed to determine the number of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs), one major type of DNA damage. No significant effects of salinity were found at the CPDs level except for 3% artificial seawater after LP UV exposure case. It is imperative that site-specific conditions of salinity be taken into account in the design of UV reactors to treat V. cholerae and other species.

Three types of nanosilver materials, which were commercial, chemically-synthesized and biologically-synthesized, respectively, were compared in terms of the disinfection efficiencies against Escherichia coli and MS2 coliphage in order to pinpoint promising material with the best performance. Disinfection results showed biologically-synthesized silver nanoparticles (referred to hereafter as ‘bio-AgNPs’) had the best disinfection performance, 10 mg/L of which was able to inactivate all the E. coli in 1 min (>6 log removals) and achieved 4 log removals of MS2 coliphage. Bio-AgNPs were therefore selected for further study in terms of effects of the concentration and contact time as well as the impacts of environmental conditions on the viral inactivation. Given the viral inactivation profile of bio-AgNPs shown in this study, it could be concluded that viral inactivation by bio-AgNPs could be inhibited by total organic carbon (TOC) (10 mg/L as humic acid) and chloride ion (5 mg/L) to a large extent while Ca2+/Mg2+/ionic strength only had minor effects on the viral inactivation at high concentrations (188 mg/L as CaCO3 of hardness or 5.6 mM of ionic strength, respectively). This part of the study may help enlighten further mechanism studies on viral inactivation by nanosilver.

Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation is an emerging technique for drinking water disinfection due to effective removal of enteric pathogens without generation of disinfection by-products (DBPs). In order to overcome the drawback of UV irradiation the integration of UV disinfection with sequential disinfectant was proposed. Among all the possible combinations and sequences, a UV/H2O2-Cl2 integrated system has proven to be effective in many previous studies. In this study, a UV/H2O2 flow-through system followed by free chlorine was built and studied. MS-2 coliphage, as a model for a waterborne virus, were inactivated to evaluate the disinfection capacity. Assimilable organic carbon (AOC) tests and an Ames assay using Salmonella typhimurium TA98 and TA100 on such a proposed integrated system were also performed to determine re-growth potential of bacteria and genotoxicity, respectively. Briefly, such a proposed flow-through system was effective in removal of MS-2 coliphage and no genotoxic potential was detected according to the results; however, an increase of AOC may raise concerns of bacterial re-growth along the subsequent distribution system.

UV disinfection is highly effective against most pathogens, with the exception of the adenoviruses (AD). To date, many studies have focused on low-pressure (LP) UV inactivation of AD, but little is known about the effect of medium-pressure (MP) UV inactivation of AD. Despite numerous studies of LP UV inactivation of AD, extreme variabilities in the LP UV dose requirements of AD had been observed because of differing experimental conditions used, such as the types of cell lines used for AD enumeration. This study therefore investigates the effect of three different host cell lines (PLC/PRF/5, human embryonic kidney 293 [HEK293], and XP17BE) on the LP and MP UV dose requirements of AD serotype 5 (AD5), AD40, and AD41 under similar experimental settings. Results showed that for 4-log inactivation of AD, LP UV and MP UV doses needed to be in the ranges of 123 to 182 mJ/cm 2 and 65 to 90 mJ/cm 2 , respectively, when HEK293 and PLC/PRF/5 cells were used for enumeration. The UV doses required for MP UV inactivation of AD were significantly lower than those required for LP UV inactivation ( P value < 0.05). When different cell lines were used for enumeration, UV dose requirements for AD differed. AD were portrayed to be most susceptible to UV (LP UV doses of 2 and MP UV doses of 2 for 4-log AD inactivation) when the XP17BE cells were used as the host cell. The use of different cell lines for AD enumeration affected LP UV dose results more significantly than MP UV dose results ( P value < 0.05). Cell line variability factors for LP UV disinfection (CL LP ) and MP UV disinfection (CL MP ) for AD5, AD40, and AD41 enumerated with HEK293, PLC/PRF/5, and XP17BE cells were in the ranges of 1.0 to 3.2 and 1.0 to 2.5, respectively.

Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection of bacteriophage MS2 in different waters containing particles was studied and a two-stage survival phenomenon was observed. It was found that turbidity had a negative impact on UV disinfection. In addition, the presence of fecal coliforms ( E. coli C) was discovered to have an adverse effect on the virucidal efficiency of UV disinfection. It was also noted that the efficiency of UV disinfection was affected by particle size, number of particles, and particle size distribution. It was assumed that the indicator organisms in the water could be classified into two main categories, namely protected and less-protected to UV irradiation. In the less-protected group, viruses were assumed to exist in a dispersed state. In the protected group, on the other hand, viruses were assumed to exist in a particle-associated state. Based on this assumption, a model was derived for describing the measured inactivation of particle-associated viruses exposed to UV light. The results predicted by the proposed model were in good agreement with the experimental data.

Aims To investigate the medium-pressure (MP) and low-pressure (LP) Ultraviolet (UV) susceptibility and the repair potential of Enterococcus faecalis (DSM 20478) after UV treatment. Methods and Results A range of UV doses from 4 to 19 mJ cm−2 was selected in this study. Photoreactivation and dark repair performance were investigated under fluorescent light or in the dark respectively. The inactivation and repair performance of UV disinfection under a range of salinities (0, 1%, 3%) and temperature (4 and 25°C) were compared. Results indicated that MP UV exposure resulted in higher inactivation efficiency against Ent. faecalis than LP UV exposure. For repair potential, LP UV resulted in a greater level of light repair than MP UV. Effect of salinity on the inactivation and repair of Ent. faecalis was correlated with UV sources, whereas low temperature generally adversely affected the inactivation efficiency and final repair levels after both MP and LP UV exposure. Conclusions Both salinity and temperature demonstrated to play an important role in the inactivation and repair capability when UV light was used to treat ballast water. Significance and Impact of the Study Considering that UV-treated ballast water is exposed or discharged to marine water environment in many countries with various temperature and salinity conditions, results of this study provide significant implications for the management of public health associated with ballast water treatment and discharge.

Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection is becoming increasingly popular as an alternative disinfection technology to chlorination in recent years. In this study, we investigated the photoreactivation of Escherichia coli following medium-pressure (MP) UV disinfection of synthetic water by a bench-scale collimated beam apparatus. The UV doses ranged from 1.6 –19.7 mWs/cm2 and photoreactivation was investigated for 6 hours under fluorescent light. In addition, chloramination was applied after UV disinfection to investigate its ability to control photoreactivation. It was found that photoreactivation occurred for all UV doses tested and the increase in bacteria numbers ranged from 0.04 to 1.35 log10. However, the degree of photoreactivation decreased with increased UV doses. Chloramination experiments revealed that the addition of 0.5 mg/l of monochloramine resulted in suppression of photoreactivation for 1 hour only. An increased monochloramine dose of 1 mg/l was found to prevent photoreactivation for the entire duration of the experiment. The results of this study have shown that photoreactivation occurs even after MP UV disinfection, although it is of a lesser extent at higher UV doses. This study has also established that secondary chloramination can effectively suppress and eliminate photoreactivation with a chloramine dose of 1 mg/l.

Ultraviolet (UV) light disinfection has increasingly been used as an alternative method to replace conventional chlorine disinfection as it has been found to be a more efficient disinfection method. As UV disinfection only damages the nucleic acids of the microorganisms to prevent replication, there is a possibility of microorganisms repairing the damage sites. As few studies have investigated the reactivation of microorganisms after exposure to medium-pressure UV disinfection, it is essential for reactivation related to medium-pressure UV disinfection to be studied as medium-pressure lamps are gaining in popularity. Besides, disinfection by-products (DBPs) produced by UV disinfection have been discovered recently and may serve as a carbon source in the finished water, resulting in regrowth of the bacteria. It is therefore important to know the regrowth potential of bacteria with the existence of DBPs. In this study, the repair and regrowth of Escherichia coli after UV disinfection were investigated. Results showed that E. coli underwent photo repair (up to 5 log under fluorescent light conditions) more significantly than dark repair (up to 0.8 log in terms of bacterial count increase). The repair was generally found to be higher at low doses. At the same UV dose, it seems medium-pressure UV irradiation is able to control the repair to a lesser extent. In addition, the bacterial regrowth potential was studied with the addition of DBPs typically found in UV processes, such as acetic acid and formaldehyde. The maximum increase in bacterial count was found to be 0.3 log. Generally, the level of regrowth was insignificant compared with the increase of bacterial count due to bacterial repair.