Water treatment process for the reduction of THM and HAA formation

摘要

Disclosed herein are systems and process integrating the chemical-free oxidation of a photocatalytic decontamination process with a biological decontamination system to eliminate the THM and HAA precursors in drinking water. In one embodiment, a system may comprise a source providing fluid media contaminated with toxic natural organic matter, and a photocatalytic decontamination subsystem configured to oxidize the toxic natural organic matter via a photocatalytic process into non-toxic natural organic matter having a molecular weight low enough for biodegrading said non-toxic matter. The system may include a biological decontamination subsystem configured to immediately receive the contaminated fluid output from the photocatalytic decontamination subsystem, and employing a biological agent to biologically degrade the low-molecular weight non-toxic natural organic matter in the contaminated fluid to a concentration sufficient to prevent the formation of trihalomethanes or haloacetic acids. Also, such a system may include a disinfectant sub-system configured to disinfect the fluid output from the biological decontamination subsystem.