An assessment of the checkpoint bioassay concept for full scale wastewater UV reactor validation

摘要

In an effort to help policy makers and manufacturers understand the impact of parameternuncertainties on UV reactor performance, a numerical bioassay model was developed by integratingna UV reactor model based on computational fluid dynamics with a Monte Carlo model developed tonaccount for parameter uncertainty. For the model implemented, it was determined that reactornperformance uncertainty was less than 6%. The integrated model was used to evaluate severalncheckpoint bioassay criteria including one currently used by the California Department of PublicnHealth. The model showed that these criteria failed to take into account the fact that in an ideal case,na full scale reactor will pass a single checkpoint test 50% of the time. In reality, differences innequipment measurement errors between the system validation and checkpoint bioassay, andnlimitations of the power law form of the dose monitoring equation in accurately representing systemnvalidation data will result in poorer than expected performance. It was suggested that suchncheckpoint criteria be modified by crediting the inherent over-sizing of full scale reactors.