Photocatalytic inactivation of Clostridium perfringens spores on TiO2 electrodes

Disinfection of drinking water is commonly carried out by chlorination, however research has shown this method to be ineffective against certain rotozoan, viral and biofilm forming microorganisms. Furthermore, chlorination can result in the formation of mutagenic disinfection by-products. emiconductor photocatalysis may be a possible alternative to chlorination for point-of-use drinking water disinfection. In this work TiO2 electrodes ere fabricated using electrophoretic immobilisation of commercially available TiO2 powders onto conducting supports, i.e. indium-doped tin xide-coated glass, titanium metal and titanium alloy. Photocatalytic inactivation of Escherichia coli and Clostridium perfringens spores in water as demonstrated on all immobilised TiO2 films. The rate of photocatalytic inactivation of E. coli was one order of magnitude greater than that of . perfringens spores. The application of an external electrical bias significantly increased the rate of photocatalytic disinfection of C. perfringens pores. The effect of incident light intensity and initial spore loading were investigated and disinfection kinetics determined as pseudo-first order. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.