Ozone
Water disinfection

Since the invention of Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma reactors, it has been employed for water treatment with ozone. However, with cheaper alternative disinfectants like chlorine, such applications of DBD ozone water decontamination have been limited by high power consumption and bulky equipment. Despite this, with research revealing the negative impacts of common disinfectants like chlorine with respect to toxic residuals and ineffectiveness in killing certain micro-organisms, DBD plasma-based ozone decontamination is of interest in current available technologies. Although ozonation of water with a high concentration of bromide does lead to the formation of undesirable brominated disinfection byproducts, unless drinking water is produced by desalination, ozonation can generally be applied without concern for these byproducts. Advantages of ozone include high thermodynamic oxidation potential, less sensitivity to organic material and better tolerance for pH variations while retaining the ability to kill bacteria, fungi, viruses, as well as spores and cysts. Although, ozone has been widely accepted in Europe for decades, it is sparingly used for decontamination in the U.S. due to limitations of high-power consumption, bulky installation and stigma attached with ozone toxicity. Considering this, recent research efforts have been directed towards the study of effective ozone water treatment systems. Researchers have looked into lightweight and compact low power surface DBD reactors, energy efficient volume DBD reactors and low power micro-scale DBD reactors. Such studies can help pave the path to re-acceptance of DBD plasma-based ozone decontamination of water, especially in the U.S.
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