Focus on Water: One Water Market Forecast, Research and Presentations

IUVA One Water
Castine A. Bernardy, Ph.D. CDM Smith, Manchester, NH
James P. Malley Jr., Ph.D., Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of New Hampshire

This issue’s column provides an overview of the global market for UV disinfection technology, a survey of recent publications related to “One Water” and a summary of research efforts currently underway.

 A Snapshot of the UV Technology Global Market

The Global Ultraviolet (UV) Disinfection Equipment Market size is estimated to grow by USD 851.2 million from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. 1 The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of over 4.97% during the forecast period. Evolving benefits of UV disinfection equipment are driving market growth, with a trend toward growing demand for ultrapure water. However, availability of refurbished UV disinfection equipment poses a challenge.

Ultrapure water is a high-purity water essential in various industries for applications where water needs to be as close to pure H2O as possible. Ultrapure water is produced using a combination of water purification technologies, such as reverse osmosis, and has an electric resistivity ratio of 0.1-1.5 M ohm cm. This water primarily is used in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries for producing semiconductor chips and integrated circuits, plasma displays and cleaning semiconductor liquid crystal panels and wafers. In power generation, ultrapure water is used in steam generators to ensure stable power plant operation. In the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, it is used as injection water.

Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection equipment plays a crucial role in producing ultrapure water by reducing Total Organic Carbon (TOC), disinfecting microorganisms, reducing chlorine and chloramines, and destroying ozone. With the increasing demand for ultrapure water in various industries, the global UV disinfection equipment market is expected to grow significantly during the forecast period. UV lamp technology, using UV lamps and UV light, is at the forefront of this trend, offering efficient sterilization processes for various applications. UV robots are gaining popularity in wastewater treatment and water purification, addressing water pollution and water scarcity concerns. In the air disinfection sector, UV-C LED technology and UV-C LEDs are replacing traditional UV lamps, providing energy efficiency and longer lifespan.

With the ongoing pandemic, UV technology increasingly is being used for disinfecting surfaces and reducing disease transmission. The automotive sector also is adopting UV technology to disinfect interiors and reduce the need for alcohol-based hand sanitizers. UV sterilization processes also are becoming a viable alternative to chemical disinfection methods, like chlorination and chlorine gas, offering a safer and more sustainable solution for viruses and bacteria in wastewater treatment.

Recent Publications Related to UV Technology and “One Water”

Beginning with this issue, the column will list peer-reviewed articles that may be of interest to the readers who focus on UV applications to “One Water.” Efforts will include using multiple scientific search engines. Searches of this nature often will identify hundreds to thousands of citations, so criteria such as timeliness of topic relative to reader interests and the quality of the journal publishing the work will be used to list up to 25 publications.

  1. Real-time water quality monitoring using AI-enabled sensors: Detection of contaminants and UV disinfection analysis in smart urban water systems, Durgun, Yeliz Journal of King Saud University. Science, 2024-10, Vol.36 (9), p.103409, Article 103409
  2. Effects of Fe(III) on the formation and toxicity alteration of halonitromethanes, dichloroacetonitrile, and dichloroacetamide from polyethyleneimine during UV/chlorine disinfection, Huang, Tingting; Deng, Lin; Wang, Shui; Tan, Chaoqun; Hu, Jun; Zhu, Bingqing; Li, Mengya; Lu, Lianghua; Yin, Zhihua; Fu, Bowen, Water research (Oxford), 2024-08, Vol.259, p.121844, Article 121844
  3. Bromide enhanced the formation and transformation of halonitromethanes from diatom solution in the UV/NH2Cl disinfection process, Mao, Yuyang; Wang, Tao; Deng, Lin; Fu, Shuang; Hu, Jun; Singh, Rajendra Prasad, Water, air, and soil pollution, 2024-06, Vol.235 (6), p.400, Article 400
  4. Robust optimization of a novel ultraviolet (UV) photoreactor for water disinfection: A neural network approach, Seyedin, Mahla; Hassanpour, Amirhossein; Jalali, Alireza; Raisee, Mehrdad, Chemosphere (Oxford), 2024-08, Vol.362, p.142788, Article 142788
  5. Inactivation of pathogenic microorganisms under UV/O3 advanced disinfection system in mariculture, Lai, Qiuyue; Li, Xudong; Mai, Qiwen; Pang, Yan; Li, Xiaoli; Luo, Dadong; Zhang, Yuanyuan, Desalination and water treatment, 2024-04, Vol.318, p.100361, Article 100361
  6. Innovative microbial water quality management in water distribution systems using in-pipe hydropowered UV disinfection: envisioning futuristic water-energy systems, Ma, Daniel; Belloni, Clarissa; Hull, Natalie M, Environmental technology, 2024-07, p.1-17.
  7. Research Progress of the Application of UV Light-Emitting Diodes for Water Disinfection, Wang, Jinchi; Feng, Xiaolin E3S web of conferences, 2024, Vol.560, p.2010
  8. Feasibility study of UV intensity monitoring in water disinfection systems using reverse-biased LED photometers, Pousty, D.; Gerchman, Y.; Mamane, H., Energy advances, 2024-09, Vol.3 (9), p.2407-2415
  9. UV LED wastewater disinfection: The future is upon us, MacIsaac, Sean A; Reid, Bailey; Ontiveros, Carolina; Linden, Karl G; Stoddart, Amina K; Gagnon, Graham A, Water Research X, 2024-09, Vol.24, p.100236, Article 100236
  10. Control of Aromatic Disinfection Byproducts in Potable Reuse Water by the UV 222 /H 2 O 2 vs UV 254 /H 2 O 2 Advanced Oxidation Processes, Zhao, Jing; Gong, Weiran; Yin, Ran; Shang, Chii; Mitch, William A; Environmental science & technology, 2024-09, Vol.58 (35), p.15846-15854
  11. Domestic wastewater treatment towards reuse by “self-supplied” microbial electrochemical system assisted UV/H2O2 process, Yang, Kaichao; Abu-Reesh, Ibrahim M.; He, Zhen, Water Research (Oxford), 2024-12, Vol.267, p.122504, Article 122504
  12. Far-UVC 222 nm Treatment: Effects of Nitrate/Nitrite on Disinfection Byproduct Formation Potential, Xu, Jiale; Kann, Ryan J; Mohammed, Dauda; Huang, Ching-Hua; Environmental science & technology, 2024-08, Vol.58 (34), p.15311-15320
  13. Biofilm inactivation using LED systems emitting germicidal UV and antimicrobial blue light, Pousty, Dana; Ma, Ben; Mathews, Christian; Halanur, Manohara; Mamane, Hadas; Linden, Karl G.
  14. The aggregation characteristics of Aspergillus spores under various conditions and the impact on LPUV inactivation: Comparisons with chlorine-based disinfection, Zhang, Zhenghong; Zhang, Huan; Wu, Gehui; Xu, Xiangqian; Cao, Ruihua; Wan, Qiqi; Xu, Huining; Wang, Jingyi; Huang, Tinglin; Wen, Gang; Water research (Oxford), 2024-04, Vol.253, p.121323-121323, Article 121323
  15. Domestic wastewater treatment towards reuse by “self-supplied” microbial electrochemical system assisted UV/H2O2 process; Yang, Kaichao; Abu-Reesh, Ibrahim M.; He, Zhen; Water research (Oxford), 2024-12, Vol.267, p.122504, Article 122504
  16. Disinfection of wastewater by a complete equipment based on a novel ultraviolet light source of microwave discharge electrodeless lamp: Characteristics of bacteria inactivation, reactivation and full-scale studies, Wang, Jun-Jie; Zhou, Yun-Yi; Xiang, Jue-Liu; Du, Hai-Sheng; Zhang, Jin; Zheng, Ti-Gang; Liu, Min; Ye, Ming-Qi; Chen, Zhuo; Du, Ye; The Science of the total environment, 2024-03, Vol.917, p.170200-170200, Article 170200
  17. Inactivation efficacy and mechanisms of wavelength-specific UV sources for various strains of Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1; Oh, Yoontaek; Sangsanont, Jatuwat; Woo, Hyoungmin; Boczek, Laura A.; Linden, Karl G.; Ryu, Hodon; Science of the total environment, 2024-01, Vol.907, p.167781-167781, Article 167781
  18. Effects of Fe(III) on the formation and toxicity alteration of halonitromethanes, dichloroacetonitrile, and dichloroacetamide from polyethyleneimine during UV/chlorine disinfection; Huang, Tingting; Deng, Lin; Wang, Shui; Tan, Chaoqun; Hu, Jun; Zhu, Bingqing; Li, Mengya; Lu, Lianghua; Yin, Zhihua; Fu, Bowen; Water research (Oxford), 2024-08, Vol.259, p.121844, Article 121844
  19. Evaluating the Performance of UV Disinfection across the 222–365 nm Spectrum against Aerosolized Bacteria and Viruses; Lu, Y. H.; Wang, R. X.; Liu, H. L.; Lai, A. C. K. Environmental science & technology, 2024-04, Vol.58 (16), p.6868-6877
  20. Synergistic effect of UV-A and UV-C light is traced to UV-induced damage of the transfer RNA, Probst-Rüd, Sandra; Nyangaresi, Paul Onkundi; Adeyeye, Adefolawe A.; Ackermann, Martin; Beck, Sara E.; McNeill, Kristopher; Water research, 2024-03, Vol.252, p.121189-121189, Article 121189
  21. Efficacy of UVC-LED radiation in bacterial, viral, and protozoan inactivation: an assessment of the influence of exposure doses and water quality; Freitas, Bárbara Luíza Souza; Fava, Natália Melo de Nasser; Melo-Neto, Murilo Guilherme de; Dalkiranis, Gustavo Gonçalves; Tonetti, Adriano Luiz; Byrne, John Anthony; Fernandez-Ibañez, Pilar; Sabogal-Paz, Lyda Patricia; Water research (Oxford), 2024-11, Vol.266, p.122322, Article 122322
  22. What is the role of nitrate/nitrite in trace organic contaminants degradation and transformation during UV-based advanced oxidation processes? Ao, Xiuwei; Zhang, Xi; Sun, Wenjun; Linden, Karl G.; Payne, Emma M.; Mao, Ted; Li, Zifu; Water research (Oxford), 2024-04, Vol.253, p.121259-121259, Article 121259
  23. A Combination of UV and Disinfectant for Inactivating Viable but Nonculturable State IPseudomonas aeruginosa/I: Efficiency and Mechanisms; Zhao, Jinfeng; Zhu, Huichao; Tao, Chen; Wang, Zhiquan; Deng, Ning; Huang, Xin; Water (Basel), 2024-05, Vol.16 (9)
  24. Combination of magnetic field and ultraviolet for fouling control in saline wastewater distribution systems; Liu, Zeyuan; Xiao, Yang; Muhammad, Tahir; Zhou, Yunpeng; Hou, Peng; Zha, Yingdong; Yu, Ruihong; Qu, Shen; Ma, Changjian; Li, Yunkai; Water research (Oxford), 2024-03, Vol.251, p.121118-121118, Article 121118
  25. Suppressing Organic Bromine but Promoting Bromate: Is the Ultraviolet/Ozone Process a Double-Edged Sword for the Toxicity of Wastewater to Mammalian Cells? Chen, Ying; Yuan, Chang-Jie; Xu, Bao-Jun; Cao, Jie-Yu; Lee, Min-Yong; Liu, Min; Wu, Qianyuan; Du, Ye; Environmental science & technology, 2024-07, Vol.58 (26), p.11649-11660

UV Research Presentation Summary

A CDM Smith presentation at the Florida Water Research Conference (FWRC) covered modeling innovations for UV Advanced Oxidation Processes (UV AOP) technologies. The presentation focused on modeling UV AOP radical rates to predict degradation of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). A summary is provided below:

Only a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands of known compounds produced and discharged to water reclamation facilities have regulatory limits and comprehensive experimental toxicological data profiles. As potable reuse becomes more common, the challenge of limited testing availability and the extensive time required for thorough toxicological studies on contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) becomes more pronounced. This research addresses the challenge of predicting the treatability of these compounds through UV AOP in potable reuse systems.

The study developed a support vector regression (SVR) model to predict hydroxyl radical rate constants that can be used to predict treatability for constituents without experimental data. The model was trained and tested using molecular descriptors and demonstrated high predictive accuracy (R² = 0.92 for training and R² = 0.90 for testing) when tested using a list of 939 compounds that are especially important for water reuse. When training a machine learning model, a dataset typically is broken up into two sets: a training set, where the unknown variable is known to the model, and a testing set, where the unknown variable is predicted using the correlations derived from the training data. If the coefficient of determination (R2) is high, then that means that the trends identified using the training data are adequate enough to capture the variation inherent in the testing data.

Out of the 939 compounds evaluated, 925 compounds (98.3%) had standardized residuals smaller than +/-3, indicating that the model was able to accurately predict the hydroxyl radical rate constraints (log K) for those compounds. The SVR model provides a valuable tool for predicting the treatability of CECs in potable reuse systems, particularly for compounds lacking experimental data. The model identified several compounds with unknown experimental data and high standardized residuals, providing valuable information for research labs when planning future toxicological research. Overall, the SVR model gives utilities the ability to quickly identify the treatability of CECs with UV AOP, which can help utilities design effective treatment trains and mitigate risks associated with industrial discharges. Future research will focus on refining the model and expanding its applicability to a broader range of contaminants.

This work was conducted and presented by John Sheets, Joshua Benjamin and David MacNevin at CDM Smith. For more information, email Joshua Benjamin at [email protected].

Reference

  1. https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/ultraviolet-uv-disinfection-equipment-market-to-grow-by-usd-851-2-million-from-2024-2028-driven-by-evolving-benefits-ai-powered-report-highlights-market-evolution-technavio-ae6913fc

 

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