ADDING SILVER AND COPPER TO HYDROGEN PEROXIDE AND PERACETIC ACID IN THE DISINFECTION OF AN ADVANCED PRIMARY TREATMENT EFFLUENT

Abstract

This paper evaluates the efficacy of hydrogen peroxide (HP) and peracetic acid (PAA) in the disinfection of an Advanced Primary Treatment (APT) effluent, and how said disinfection capacities can be enhanced by combining the oxidants with copper (Cu2+) and silver (Ag). The treatment sequence consisted of APT (adding chemicals to water to remove suspended solids by coagulation and flocculation), followed by disinfection with various doses of HP, HP+Cu2+, HP+Ag, PAA and PAA+Ag. Microbiological quality was determined by monitoring concentrations of fecal coliforms (FC), pathogenic bacteria (PB) and helminth eggs (HE) throughout the sequence. The results revealed that APT effluent still contains very high levels of bacteria as the treatment only removes 1–2 log of FC and PB, but the reduction in the number of viable helminth eggs was 83%. Subsequent disinfection stages demonstrated that both HP+Cu2+ and HP+Ag have a marked disinfection capacity for bacteria (3.9 and 3.4 log‐inactivation, respectively). Peracetic acid on its own was already extremely efficient at disinfecting for bacteria, and the effect was enhanced when combining PAA with silver (PAA+Ag). The best result for HE removal was achieved by combining PAA with silver (PAA+Ag) at doses of 20 + 2.0 mg l−1, respectively. The study concluded that the PAA+Ag and HP+Ag combinations were good alternatives for APT effluent disinfection, because the disinfected effluents met the standards in NOM‐001‐SEMARNAT‐1996, Mexico’s regulation governing the microbiological quality required in treated wastewater destined for unrestricted reuse in agricultural irrigation (≤ 1 helminths per litre). Combining either of these disinfection treatments with a primary method such as APT, therefore, offers an effective and practical way of reducing the health risks normally associated with the reuse of wastewaters.