(146a) Mechanisms of Improvements in Virus Control By Electrocoagulation: Removal and Inactivation
AIChE Annual Meeting
2019
2019 AIChE Annual Meeting
Separations Division
In Honor of Ruth Baltus I (Invited Talks)
Monday, November 11, 2019 - 12:30pm to 1:10pm
The principal objectives of this research are to elucidate underlying virus destabilization/removal mechanisms during electrocoagulation and identify possible intermediates leading to inactivation. We explore the electrochemical oxidation of sacrificial elemental aluminum and iron anodes to directly dissolve metal ion coagulant precursors that neutralize virus surface charge and upon hydrolysis sweep coagulate viruses. In all cases, the F-specific ssRNA coliphage MS2 was employed as the model virus. Atomic force microscopy was performed to directly measure adhesion forces between viruses and aluminum precipitates. Experiments were performed on synthetic buffered water at low and high pH as well as using saline background solutions to electrolytically produce free chlorine. Low chlorine concentrations combined with virus shielding and aggregation within flocs resulted in very slow disinfection rates in solutions with high salinity.
Inactivation mechanisms were pursued via attenuated total reflectance â Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Evidence for oxidative transformations of capsid proteins including formation of oxyacids, aldehydes, and ketones and RNA damage kinetics will be discussed. Finally, recent results on electrochemical iron inactivation and coagulation will be presented.