Disinfection of Microbial Agents in Combined Sewer Overflows Using the Green Disinfectant Peracetic Acid

The goal of this research was to evaluate peracetic acid (PAA) as a potential end-of-pipe disinfectant for combined sewer overflow (CSO) effluent with a focus on emerging microbial contaminants. In particular we investigate the ability of PAA disinfection to inactivate antibiotic resistant bacteria and destroy antibiotic resistance genes (ARG). A viability-based qPCR method was applied to differentiate between ARG in viable cells and ARG present in nonviable cells or as extracellular DNA. Understanding this partitioning is critical for predicting the fate of antibiotic resistance in the environment and will improve our knowledge of the effectiveness of PAA as a CSO disinfectant.