Development of a Simple and Effective Water Disinfection System Using an Electrochemical Mixed Oxidants-Generating System to Remove Waterborne Pathogens in Developing Countries

Abstract

Despite tremendous efforts from various international agencies such as World Health Organization (WHO), waterborne diseases are a still major cause of morbidity and mortality in the world – with more than 1 billion incidences and more than 2 million deaths per year. As an effort to mitigate this global burden, we developed a water disinfection system using electrochemical mixed oxidants-generating system. This system is simple, inexpensive, and easy to use. In this study, we determined the effectiveness of the new water disinfection system against waterborne pathogens using <i>Escherichia coli</i> CN13, bacteriophage MS2 and <i>Bacillus subtilis</i> spores as bacterial, viral, and protozoa indicator organisms, respectively. The results of this study showed that the new water disinfection system is very effective against <i>E. coli</i> CN13 (~3 log₁₀ inactivation within 3 minutes with 0.3 mg/L of free chlorine) and coliphage MS2 (> 4 log₁₀ inactivation within 3 minutes with 0.5 mg/L of free chlorine) Although the inactivation of <i>B. subtilis</i> spores by the new disinfection system was somewhat slow (~0.5 log₁₀ inactivation in 60 minutes with 10 mg/L of free chlorine), the result is similar to previous studies with free chlorine. Overall, the results of this study indicate that the new water disinfection system using an electrochemical mixed oxidants-generating system is easy to use, convenient to carry, and also very effective against most waterborne pathogens, so it could be a sustainable solution for providing safe drinking water to the people in developing countries.