Development of a Rapid ATP Analysis Method for UV Disinfection Monitoring - Confirming Microbial Response in a Single Work Shift

ATP testing provides cost effective results in a matter of minutes in the laboratory or the field. A challenge with ATP monitoring is that a n Ultraviolet dose sufficient to cause a significant reduction in culturability yields little to no reduction in ATP. The objective was to develop a pre-treatment technique prior to ATP assay that can detect differences in cellular ATP between pre and post UV treated wastewater in a single shift (<8hrs). The research approach involved incubating both untreated and irradiated samples in a suitable growth environment to accelerate bacterial growth prior to ATP analysis. The treatment efficacy was determined by the disparity in increase of cATP growth. In Summary, a robust ATP Incubation Method has been developed to detect UV disinfection efficacy in municipal wastewater treatment. The response of the method indicated a statistically significant direct correlation to the microbial population reduction observed in HPC method (R2A agar, 28 °C, 7days) for both pure E.coli culture and secondary effluent.