New Method for Validating UV Disinfection Systems Shows Promise

摘要

Although the use of ultraviolet (UV) light to disinfect drinking water is growing, concerns remain over the extent to which the performance of UV systems can be directly validated, UV is known to be an effective tool for inactivating cryp-tosporidia and other pathogens resistant to chlorine. Yet since current methods for assessing the efficiency of full-scale UV systems indicate only the average dose that microorganisms receive, hydraulic modeling must be used to estimate the fraction of microorganisms in a given system that might not receive a sufficient dose of UV light. However, a team of researchers has developed an experimental method that measures UV performance more directly, providing a potential means of improving the process of validating UV disinfection systems.