Investigating the Efficiency of Ultraviolet Irradiation for Inactivation of Free Living Nematodes in Water

Background and Objectives: Free living nematodes due to their active movement and resistance to chlorination; dont remove in conventional water treatment processes thus can be entered to distribution systems and cause adverse health effects. UV irradiation can be used as a method of inactivating these organisms.Materials and Methods: This study is done to investigate the effect of ultraviolet lamp on inactivation of free living nematode (Rhabitidae) in water. The effects of duration of irradiation, turbidity, temperature, UV dose and pH are investigated in this study. Ultraviolet lamp used in this study was a 11 watt lamp with intensity of 24 μw / cm2.Results: Contact time required to achieve 100% efficiency for larvae nematodes and adults were 9 and 10 minutes, respectively. Increase of turbidity up to 25 NTU decreased inactivation efficiency of larvae and adult nematodes from 100% to 66% and 100% to 64%, respectively. Change in pH ranged from 6 to 9 did not affect the efficiency of inactivation. With increasing temperature inactivation rate increased.Conclusion: The results showed that there was a significant correlation between the increase in contact time, temperature rise and turbidity reduction with inactivation efficiency of lamp)p<0.001(. Also the effect of the lamp on inactivation of larvae nematode was more than the adults.