Disinfection of Klebsiella pneumoniae using ultrasonic systems

Abstract

Disinfection process applied for suppling drinking water plays an important role in public health by preventing the spread of infectious diseases. A number of studies on alternative disinfection technologies, such as ultrasound, is increasing due to various disadvantages of the current water disinfection techniques (such as chlorination, ozone, and UV radiation) that are widely applied for the prevention of pathogenic micro organism borne epidemic diseases. For the ultrasonic disinfection applications being developed to be used in water treatment, their activities on various pathogenic micro organisms must be examined. The effects of applied power, media ions and dissolved gases in water during ultrasonic disinfection should be investigated. In this study, Klebsiella pneumoniaed is infection was performed in continuous (USR22C) and batch(USR22B) reactors operated at an ultrasonic frequency of 22 kHz at powers of 36, 67 and 95 W for an initial bacteria concentration of 1 - 2 x 105 CFU ml-1. The effect of sulphate, nitrate, bicarbonate ions and nitrogen gas in water on ultrasonic disinfection was investigated. As a result of this study, it was determined that 99% (2log) removal of Klebsiella pneumoniae from the water can be performed with ultrasonic disinfection, and the media ions and nitrogen gas are effective in ultrasonic disinfection