Disinfection or sterilisation

• Filtered water may contain some harmful disease producing

bacteria

• These bacteria must be killed in order to make the water safe

for drinking

• Chemicals used for killing bacteria are known as disinfectants

• Process is called disinfection or sterilisation

Minor methods of disinfection

1. BOILING

• Destroys bacteria present in water

• heat – denatures proteins and nucleic acids
• Cannot be used for public water supplies
• No residual protection
2. Treating with excess of lime

• Excess of lime kills bacteria

• Addition of 14 to 43 ppm of excess lime removes bacteria load

by 99.3 to 100 %

• excess of lime increases pH , extreme alkalinity -detrimental

to survival of bacteria
Treatment with ozone :

• Produced by passing high electric current through a stream of air in a closed

chamber
under high electric current

3O2 2O 3

• Ozone readily breaks into O2 and nascent oxygen

O3 O2 + O

• Nascent oxygen is a powerful oxidising agent and removes bacteria and organic
matter from water

• During treatment , ozone gas is manufactured and bubbled through water

contained in a sterilising chamber
Treatment with bromine and Iodine :
• Kills pathogenic bacteria
• Requires 8 ppm and contact period of 5 minutes

Potassium permangnate:
• popular method of disinfecting well water supplies
• A small amount of KMnO4 is dissolved in bucket of water and mixed with
well water
• Disappearance of pink colour indicates presence of organic matter -KMnO4
added till the pink colour retains
• Normal dose : 1 to 2 mg /l with a contact period of 4 to 6 hours
• Removes 98% bacteria
Chlorination

• Used for disinfecting public water supplies

• Cheap, reliable, easy to handle
• Provides residual disinfection for long periods
Disinfecting action of chlorine
• Cl2 when added to water undergoes the following reaction:

Hypochlorous acid

Hypochlorite ions

 forms hypochlorous acid and hypochlorite ions

• HOCl and OCl- is defined as free available chlorine

• HOCl is 80 times more effective than OCl- , Lower pH favours HOCl

• Chlorine immediately reacts with ammonia present in water to form chloramines ,

• Chloramines possess disinfecting properties

• Chloramines 25 times less effective than free chlorine

• Enzymatic hypothesis : chlorine enters cell wall of bacteria and kills

enzymes essential for metabolism
Doses of chlorine

• Amount of chlorine required for a water depends upon the inorganic and organic
impurities present

• Chlorine when added to water , it first reacts with inorganic impurities (S --, Fe++,
Mn ++, NO2, ) that convert chlorine to chloride

• Excess chlorine after this is consumed by ammonia to form chloramine

• Chlorine also reacts with organic impurities present in water

• The chlorine consumed in all the cases represents chlorine demand of water

• When once it gets satisfied , chlorine will appear as free chlorine

• Most of the water are satisfactorily disinfected if the free chlorine residual is
about 0.2 mg /l , 10 minutes after chlorine is applied
• The optimum dose of chlorine for a given water is generally determined
experimentally by adding varying amount of chlorine to a given sample
and observing the residual left after a contact period of about 10 minutes

• The dose which leaves a residual of about 0.2 mg/l is then selected

• This total dose minus the free residual will automatically represent
chlorine demand of water
Various forms in which chlorine is applied

• liquid chlorine or as chlorine gas

• Bleaching powder
• Chloramines ( mixture of ammonia and chlorine )
• Chlorine dioxide
Types of chlorination
Plain chlorination

• Only chlorine treatment is given to raw water

• this helps in removing bacteria, organic matter and colour from raw
water
• This is used for relatively clearer water ( with turbidity less than 20 mg/l )

Pre chlorination

• Process of applying chlorine to water before filtration or before

sedimentation - coagulation
• It helps in improving coagulation and help in reducing the load on filter
• Normal dose required is 5 to 10 mg/l
Post chlorination

• Process of applying chlorine in the end when all the treatment process are
completed

• The dose of chlorine should be such that it leaves a residue of about 0.1
mg/l to 0.2 mg/l after a contact period of 20 minutes

Double chlorination

• water is chlorinated twice

• Pre-chlorination and post chlorination are used

Break point chlorination

• Gives an idea of the extent of chlorine

that must be added to water

• It represents the dose of chlorination ,

beyond which any further addition of
chlorine will appear as free residual
chlorine

• Point C is called breakpoint as any

chlorine that is added to water beyond
this point , breaks through water and
appear as residual chlorine
Super chlorination

• Addition of excess chlorine to water (5 to 15 mg/l )

• Used for highly polluted water or outbreak of disease

• After the desired contact period , dechlorination is done with

activated carbon , sulphur dioxide , sodium thiosulphate to
reduce the taste of excess chlorine