Inactivation of Virus in Water by Nanoparticles Under UV Irradiation

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is of growing interest in the water industry since it has been demonstrated that UV disinfection is very effective against pathogenic micro-organisms, such as bacteria, and virus in drinking water. However, it has been demonstrated that virus are generally more resistant to UV exposure than bacterial pathogens. Therefore, a new approach has been proposed for the inactivation of virus in water. The incorporation of silver and TiO2 nanoparticles to the UV treatment is expected to produce promising results. When exposed to UV radiation, some nanoparticles with photosensitive properties are thought to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) that can harm and kill virus. In this research, silver and TiO2 nanoparticles were added to lambda-bacteriophage and exposed to UV radiation to study the disinfection effect that these variables have on the virus. The treatment of lambda-phage and nanosilver proved to be effective in killing 99.71% of the original virus. This nanosilver concentration can be increased in order to achieve a higher disinfection ratio. It was demonstrated that TiO2 produces more ROS than nanosilver, but at the same level of concentration they had different effects in killing the virus. At low concentrations (1.0-2.0ppm), nanosilver was more effective than TiO2.