Disinfection at the Water/Wastewater Treatment Plant of the Future

An extensive array of treatment options, including engineered and managed natural treatment processes, exist that can be employed to remove or help reduce the level of microbial and chemical contaminants in source waters to produce safe drinking water and in domestic wastewater to meet more stringent requirements to protect surface waters or produce reclaimed water for various reuse purposes. The poor quality of some source waters being treated for use as drinking water supplies and the tightening of discharge requirements being faced by many POTWs, as well as the growing interest in the use of reclaimed wastewater effluents as a source of drinking water, has resulted in an increasing similarity of the advanced treatment technologies being employed by water treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants. Disinfection practices employed by water treatment plants and wastewater treatment and reclamation plants are a part of this trend, and involve the use of technologies other than traditional chlorination.