2022 Volume 45 Issue 6 Pages 245-256
Flow-through tests using a dye microcapsules Lagrangian actinometer (DMC-LA) and a biodosimeter (MS2, Qβ) were conducted to study the UV photosensitivity of DMC-LA in flow-through tests, a method for calculating average UV doses in a UV disinfection reactor, as well as the applicability of the DMC-LA method to flow-through tests. The fluorescence distributions obtained with the DMC-LA fitted the lognormal distributions. The obtained UV dose distributions of the UV disinfection reactor could be regarded as a lognormal distribution with a shape similar to a normal distribution, and the variance increased with decreasing flow rate. The predictions based on the obtained UV dose distributions agreed with the measured values from the flow-through tests using each biodosimeter with the same accuracy over a range of up to 2.9 log inactivation for MS2 and up to 3.1 log inactivation for Qβ. The results of this study confirmed that the DMC-LA method is applicable not only to collimated beam tests but also to flow-through tests, indicating that the DMC-LA method is effective for the validation of UV disinfection reactors.
