Katelyn Brodsky
Pronouns: She/her
Research Mentor(s): Aleksandra Szczuka
Research Mentor School/College/Department: CEE / Engineering
Program:
Authors: Katelyn Brodsky, Aleksandra Szczuka
Session: Session 4: 1:40 pm – 2:30 pm
Poster: 13
Abstract
Water purification is one of the most vital processes for human life. Many things contaminate water, including pathogens, chemicals, and other pollutants. Pathogens in water have always been a concern, but after the Covid-19 outbreak in 2019, pathogens in water became a big concern for the general public too. In drinking water, contaminants need to be lowered to level to ensure that water is safe for human consumption. This project seeks to aid in ways to quickly inactivate viruses to a safe concentration for human consumption during water reuse treatment using novel advanced oxidation processes. In doing so, this research also aims to find a more efficient way to disinfect pathogens than the current standard advanced oxidation process (AOP) used for water reuse, UV mercury lights and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). An emerging alternative is the UV-LED chlorine dioxide (ClO2) based AOP, which has been shown to remove chemical contaminants at a lower energy compared to the traditional UV H2O2 AOP. However, it is unclear whether the process is effective at removing pathogens, including viruses. In this project, we focused on bacteriophage MS2, a common surrogate for viruses studied in drinking water systems. Bacteriophage MS2 is used to estimate the inactivation of other viruses in water. We measured the inactivation of MS2 using a double-layer plaque assay under both ClO2 and UV LED light conditions, and found that ClO2 was effective at MS2 inactivation, but UV LED light was not. Although the research is still ongoing, an early hypothesis that supports the current data is that the UV LED light emits light at wavelengths in the same range as solar irradiation, and while it can deactivate pathogens, it does so at timescales that are irrelevant to water treatment.
