Hello Muhammad, so there are ...
Published by Ian Pearson
Hello Muhammad, so there are a large number of articles on this in the literature. Just my own thoughts to add to those below:
- chlorine is the most used in drinking and wastewater treatment for post disinfection and sometimes also for pre-oxidation. There may be unwanted by-products such as THMs, but these have to be weighed up against the alternatives. For large reticulation systems, ammonia is usually dosed to convert free chlorine to chloramines which have a much longer residual stability.
- chlorine dioxide has specific applications where it is more beneficial than chlorine, such as mine service water treatment where there are high levels of ammonia (from explosives) in the water, taste and odour control, biofilms, etc. It is significantly more costly than chlorine, but under particular circumstances is cost effective.
- Ozonation is a stronger oxidant than chlorine or chlorine dioxide, but does not leave a residual. This may be an advantage for wastewaters to be discharged to a stream where you do not want any residual oxidant. It is also useful as a pre-oxidant of a treatment system to breakdown difficult organics so that they may be removed in the treatment process.
- UV radiation like ozone does not leave a residual. It is useful for final treatment of an effluent being discharged to a natural water course. It does require a water with a low turbidity (or high transmissivity) to be effective.
- A combination of disinfectants is sometimes used in what is termed "advanced oxidation processes" whereby a combination of e.g. ozone and UV produces the hydroxyl radical, a short lived extremely potent oxidant.