Everything About Disinfectant for Wastewater Management

The wastewater that is generated by municipalities is perpetually a matter of attention to various bodies entrusted with preventing environmental pollution. 

In this article, we discuss two terms that should be understood by those wanting to understand municipal wastewater disinfection methods and disinfectant for wastewater management.

1. Disinfection (Inactivation Rate Microorganisms (Chick's Law)) -

Like Watson's law, this law also describes the relationship between the time required for the disinfecting agent to disinfect wastewater and it concentration. This is represented in the equation - dx/dt = kx, where x represents the quantity of the microorganism at an instant of time t and k represents the rate of decay of the microorganism measured as 1/time.

But this law can also be written as ln(x/xo) = -kt, where x represents the number of microorganisms noticed during the time t measured as number/unit volume. xo represents the number of microorganisms before the addition of the disinfectant also measured as number/unit volume, k like before is the decaying rate of microorganisms, and t the time is taken for this operation to complete.

When this law is actually applied for measuring the disinfectant for wastewater management, one has to assume that the conditions will stay stable. Thus the disinfectant for wastewater management will always be at the same level of concentration,

All the different verities of microorganisms are assumed to have an equal level of susceptibility to the disinfectant and most of all there won't be any adverse conditions to disturb the reaction.

Therefore this law does not follow a first-order rate kinetics reaction. Like Watson's law, this law too when plotted on an x-y plane reveals a straight line. But compared to that, this law has severe limitations and is better suited for laboratory analysis rather than a field-level analysis of the municipal wastewater disinfection process.

However, it can be applied to understand the disinfecting wastewater methodologies and disinfectants for wastewater management.

2. Disinfection (lethality coefficient)

This coefficient is actually an important wastewater terminology useful in the measure of the efficacy of the disinfecting agent used in wastewater.

This coefficient is written as the following reaction - 8 = 4.6 / C T99, where 4.6 is actually taken as the natural logarithmic value of 100, T99 is the time required to achieve a percentage level of 99 % with the aim of eliminating the contaminating microorganisms usually measured in minutes and C is the residue left behind after the required action has been completed the quantity of which is measured in mg/l.

The value obtained by using the above-mentioned reaction will be different for different types of disinfectants. This is an important term for anyone trying to understand the complexities of the municipal wastewater disinfection process.