A practical demonstration of water disinfection using TiO2 films and sunlight

The scope of this study is the assessment of the efficiency of solar disinfection by heterogeneous photocatalysis with sol-gel immobilized (titanium dioxide) TiO2 films over glass cylinders. The solar disinfection process known as SODIS was considered as a reference. Spring water naturally polluted with coliform bacteria was exposed to sunlight in plastic bottles with and without TiO2 over simple solar collectors and the disinfection effectiveness was measured. Total and fecal coliforms quantification was performed by means of the chromogenic substrate method in order to obtain the efficiency of each disinfection treatment. The disinfection with TiO2 was more efficient than the SODIS process, inactivating total coliforms as well as fecal coliforms. On a sunny day (more than 1000 W m(-2) irradiance), it took the disinfection with immobilized TiO2 15 min of irradiation to inactivate the fecal coliforms to make them undetectable. For inactivation of total coliforms, 30 min was required, so that in less than half the time it takes SODIS, the treated water complies with the microbial standards for drinking water in Mexico. Another important part of this study has been to determine the bacterial regrowth in water after the disinfection processes were tested. After SODIS, bacterial regrowth of coliforms was observed. In contrast, when using the TiO2 catalyst, coliforms regrowth was not detected, neither for total nor for fecal coliforms. The disinfection process using TiO2 kept treated water free of coliforms at least for seven days after sun irradiation. This demonstration opens the possibility of application of this simple method in rural areas of developing countries.