Posted: November 19th, 2022

Chlorination as a method of disinfection

Chlorination as a method of disinfection.

Effluent found in a dairy shed, raises several health and safety concerns for dairy animals and human beings. The effluent may contain bacteria, protozoan cysts and viruses. These organisms, may spread diseases to the animals and to human beings. Consequently there is need for disinfection as a mechanism of for destruction of these pathogenic organisms (Bekink & Nozaic, 2013)
Chlorination, may be used as a method to disinfect effluents from a dairy shed. This is because it destroys these target organisms by oxidising the cellular material. Chlorine is usually supplied in various forms such as hypochlorite solution, chlorine gas and in other chlorine compounds which are in either liquid form or solid form (Bourke, 2010).
Chlorination has a long running history of being a disinfectant that is effective. The method has certain advantages. Chlorine is cost effective than other methods such as ozone or UV disinfection. Chlorine residual from the disinfection, is effective beyond the time when the effluent is treated. This means that the pathogens can be killed long after treatment has been done. This method is effective and reliable against a wide range of pathogenic organisms. On top of this, chlorine has the ability to eliminate odours thus the method has no effects on the environment (Stringer & Johnston, 2001).
The method has certain disadvantages too. Some parasites contained in the effluents usually show some resistance to chlorine thus making the method ineffective in treating certain effluents. The chlorine residual is usually unstable especially in the presence of chlorine demanding materials that are at high concentration consequently requiring high chlorine treatments to effect disinfection. Treatment using chlorine, leads to the total amount of dissolved solids to increase in the already treated effluent. Chlorine also oxidises certain materials of organic matter thus creating a more hazardous compound (Werner, Valdivia-Garcia, Weir, & Haffey, 2016).

References
Bekink, M., & Nozaic, D. (2013). Assessment of a chlorine dioxide proprietary product for water and wastewater disinfection. Water SA, 39(3). doi:10.4314/wsa.v39i3.5
Bourke, M. (2010). Wastewater Disinfection. Wastewater Microbiology, 217-266. doi:10.1002/9780470901243.ch7
Stringer, R., & Johnston, P. (2001). Chlorine end use processes. Chlorine and the Environment, 25-51. doi:10.1007/978-94-015-9813-2_2
Werner, D., Valdivia-Garcia, M., Weir, P., & Haffey, M. (2016). Trihalomethanes formation in point of use surface water disinfection with chlorine or chlorine dioxide tablets. Water and Environment Journal, 30(3-4), 271-277. doi:10.1111/wej.12209

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