Evaluating Disinfection Techniques of Water Treatment Using Multi-criteria Decision-Making Method

Abstract

Disinfection in the process of water treatment is used to make water safe for intended purpose by eliminating pathogenic microorganisms from it. There are different kinds of disinfection methods used in water supply each of them with their own weakness and strength. The main objective of this study is to evaluate different water disinfection methods using VIKOR model and selecting the best alternative among the computing disinfection techniques. The study compares five water disinfection methods namely Ozone, Ultraviolent radiation, chlorination, chlorine dioxide and chloramination. For comparison of the disinfection methods, different evaluation criteria such as capital cost, maintenance and operation cost, pathogen removal efficiency, system reliability, operational simplicity, safety risk, disinfectant residue formation and undesirable byproduct formation was used. The VIKOR analysis showed that ultraviolent radiation is the most preferable disinfection method and chlorine dioxide is the least preferable disinfectant.