Publication

A conceptual model and experimental framework to determine the contributions of direct and indirect photoreactions to the solar disinfection of MS2, phiX174 and adenovirus

Publications associées (30)

Oxidation processes and me

This publication summarizes my journey in the field of chemical oxidation processes for water treatment over the last 30+ years. Initially, the efficiency of the application of chemical oxidants for micropollutant abatement was assessed by the abatement of ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Acids from fruits generate photoactive Fe-complexes, enhancing solar disinfection of water (SODIS): A systematic study of the novel " fruto-Fenton " process, effective over a wide pH range (4-9)

César Pulgarin, Aline Laetitia Schaub, Stefanos Giannakis, Giulio Farinelli, Mona Kohantorabi

This study aimed to enhance solar disinfection (SODIS) by the photo-Fenton process, operated at natural pH, through the re-utilization of fruit wastes. For this purpose, pure organic acids present in fruits and alimentary wastes were tested and compared wi ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Reactivity of Cyanobacteria Metabolites with Ozone: Multicompound Competition Kinetics

Urs von Gunten

Cyanobacterial blooms occur at increasing frequency and intensity, notably in freshwater. This leads to the introduction of complex mixtures of their products, i.e., cyano-metabolites, to drinking water treatment plants. To assess the fate of cyano-metabol ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Oxidative Water Treatment: The Track Ahead

Urs von Gunten, Yun Ho Lee

Chemical oxidation has been applied in municipal water treatment for more than a century, initially for disinfection. In the early decades, chlorine disinfection was adopted in the fight against waterborne disease. However, the oxidative properties of chlo ...

2023

Why five decades of massive research on heterogeneous photocatalysis, especially on TiO2, has not yet driven to water disinfection and detoxification applications? Critical review of drawbacks and challenges

César Pulgarin, Julian Andrés Rengifo Herrera

For fifty years, heterogeneous photocatalysis has been considered as having potential to remove organic and microbiological pollutants from water under either artificial UV light or sunlight irradiation. However, after tens of thousands of published resear ...

Elsevier Science Sa2023

Bacterial inactivation in sunlit surface waters is dominated by reactive species that emanate from the synergy between light, iron, and natural organic matter

César Pulgarin, Stefanos Giannakis, Jun Ma, Da Wang, Shuang Song

In this study, the synergistic and antagonistic effects of Fe species and coexisting natural organic matter (NOM) on the efficacy of solar light disinfection of water are investigated. Different initial iron species (Fe2+/Fe3+) and naturalorganic matter ty ...

Elsevier2023

Inactivation of coxsackievirus B5 by free chlorine under conditions relevant to drinking water treatment

Shotaro Torii

Chlorine disinfection is commonly applied to inactivate pathogenic viruses in drinking water treatment plants. However, the role of water quality in chlorine disinfection of viruses has not been investigated thoughtfully. In this study, we investigated the ...

IWA PUBLISHING2023

Sunshine and a pinch of tropical soils: A natural, low-cost photo-Fenton variation for safer water, assisted by H2O2 or percabonate

Michaël Bensimon, César Pulgarin, Stefanos Giannakis, Jérémie Decker, Thomas Guillaume

Clean water is essential for human survival, but access to safe drinking water remains a challenge in resource -limited regions. Herein, we explored a low-cost but effective solution for water potabilization using natural iron sources from soils along with ...

ELSEVIER2023

Susceptibility of enveloped and non-enveloped viruses to ultraviolet light-emitting diode (UV-LED) irradiation and implications for virus inactivation mechanisms

Shotaro Torii

Ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs), a disinfection technology, efficiently inactivate pathogens in water. However, the assessment of UV-LED treatment and the mechanisms of UV inactivation on viruses (especially enveloped viruses) are limited. ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

Formation of carbonyl compounds during ozonation of lake water and wastewater: Development of a non-target screening method and quantification of target compounds

Urs von Gunten, Joanna Maria Houska

Ozonation of natural waters is typically associated with the formation of carbonyl compounds (aldehydes, ketones and ketoacids), a main class of organic disinfection byproducts (DBPs). However, the detection of carbonyl compounds in water and wastewater is ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

Chlorination of amides: Kinetics and mechanisms of formation of N-chloramides and their reactions with phenolic compounds

Urs von Gunten, Tianqi Zhang

Amides are common constituents in natural organic matter and synthetic chemicals. In this study, we investi-gated kinetics and mechanisms of the reactions of chlorine with seven amides, including acetamide, N-meth-ylformamide, N-methylacetamide, benzamide, ...

2023

Predicting Transformation Products during Aqueous Oxidation Processes: Current State and Outlook

Urs von Gunten

Water quality and its impacts on human and ecosystem health presents tremendous global challenges. While oxidative water treatment can solve many of these problems related to hygiene and micropollutants, identifying and predicting transformation products f ...

2023

Mechanistic insights on interactions of dissolved organic matter with chemical oxidants: quantification of reactive sites and identification of oxidation byproducts

Joanna Maria Houska

Chemical oxidants including ozone (O3), chlorine (HOCl/OCl-) and chlorine dioxide (ClO2) are applied for disinfection of drinking water. To cope with water scarcity and the increased risks associated with the presence of micropollutants, water treatment sy ...

EPFL2023

Reactivity of Bromine Radical with Dissolved Organic Matter Moieties and Monochloramine: Effect on Bromate Formation during Ozonation

Urs von Gunten, Sung Eun Lim

Bromine radical (Br center dot) has been hypothesized to be a key intermediate of bromate formation during ozonation. Once formed, Br center dot further reacts with ozone to eventually form bromate. However, this reaction competes with the reaction of Br c ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

Ozonation of lake water and wastewater: Identification of carbonous and nitrogenous carbonyl-containing oxidation byproducts by non-target screening

Urs von Gunten, Joanna Maria Houska

Ozonation of drinking water and wastewater is accompanied by the formation of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) such as low molecular weight aldehydes and ketones from the reactions of ozone with dissolved organic matter (DOM). By applying a recently develope ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

Grand canonical Brownian dynamics simulations of adsorption and self-assembly of SAS-6 rings on a surface

Pierre Gönczy, Niccolo Banterle

The Spindle Assembly Abnormal Protein 6 (SAS-6) forms dimers, which then self-assemble into rings that are critical for the nine-fold symmetry of the centriole organelle. It has recently been shown experimentally that the self-assembly of SAS-6 rings is st ...

AIP Publishing2023

Operando identification of a side-on nickel superoxide intermediate and the mechanism of oxygen evolution on nickel oxyhydroxide

Xile Hu, Lichen Bai, Seunghwa Lee

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a key electrochemical reac-tion relevant to energy storage. Ni-containing bimetallic oxyhydrox-ides are among the most active OER catalysts in alkaline medium, but the mechanism of OER on pure Ni oxyhydroxide remains ...

ELSEVIER2023

Kinetic Network Modeling of the Catalytic Upgrading of Biomass's Acetate Fraction to Aromatics

Jeremy Luterbacher, Jher Hau Yeap, Bartosz Rozmyslowicz, Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim Elkhaiary

The acetate fraction is the fourth most abundant fraction by weight in many plant species and can be easily extracted as acetic acid in high yields. We have previously shown that acetic acid obtained from steam pretreated beech wood could be upgraded in a ...

Amer Chemical Soc2023

Optimal enzyme utilization suggests that concentrations and thermodynamics determine binding mechanisms and enzyme saturations

Vassily Hatzimanikatis, Daniel Robert Weilandt, Asli Sahin

One of the main challenges hampering the development of kinetic models is the lack of kinetic parameters for many enzymatic reactions. Here, the authors introduce a framework to explore the catalytically optimal operating conditions of any complex enzyme m ...

Nature Portfolio2023

Numerical simulation of the fate, transport and public health risks of enteric viruses in Lake Geneva

Chaojie Li

Lakes are a fundamental feature of nature with brilliance, profoundness and complexity. Various of physical, chemical and biological changes take place three dimensionally in deep lakes, regulated by complicated boundary conditions. To understand and predi ...

EPFL2023