Water disinfection with UV-LEDS

Abstract

The present study focuses on the evaluation of a new technique for wastewater disinfection using ultraviolet (UV) LED technology, as an alternative to the conventional methods of ultraviolet lamps and chlorine disinfection. The latter methods pose significant environmental hazards, whereas UV LED technology has several advantages, including the availability of a wide range of wavelengths for deactivating various types of bacteria, low power consumption compared to ultraviolet lamps, and the absence of toxic substances such as mercury. To assess the effectiveness of UV LED technology, various disinfection experiments were conducted using real wastewater obtained from the wastewater treatment plant in Linares. Custom-designed printed circuit boards were created to securely attach the UV LEDs for the disinfection experiments, and an experiment setup was devised to automatically monitor and control the entire process.