Electrodisinfection of real swine wastewater for water reuse

Abstract

Swine production generates large volumes of wastewater, rich in organic matter, nutrients and pathogens. Electrodisinfection is used to remove organic matter and nutrients from animal wastewater, but its effectiveness on pathogens inactivation has not been studied using real swine wastewater. Therefore, we evaluated the efficiency of electrodisinfection on pathogens reduction using real swine wastewater. For that, we tested the effect of pH and current density, using iron and aluminum electrodes. Results show a 99.99% reduction of Escherichia coli when electrodisinfection was performed during 60 min at pH 3.0 and current density of 44 mA cm−2 using iron or aluminum electrodes. The liquid fraction obtained after electrodisinfection can be reused for cleaning swine buildings, thus avoiding the use of potable water.