Electrochemical Bacteria Decontamination of Water Samples Using Fluid Permeable Electrochemical Cells

Abstract

Waterborne pathogenic bacteria pose a health risk to human's health and is related to thousands of hospitalizations each year into the US. To decontaminate water from bacteria, chlorination, ozonation or UV treatment is typically performed. In this presentation we will describe a hand-held, inexpensive device that can inactivate high concentrations of bacteria in water (up to 104 CFU/mL), and biological broth (up to 108 CFU/mL) in seconds. This device consist of three flow-through electrochemical cells connected in series. A drop of hydrogen peroxide is added into the water volume to be decontaminated and then the aqueous volume is simply passed through the fluid permeable electrochemical cells and the bacteria are killed. This device can be used to decontaminate environmental waters to become safe to drink, or decontaminate biological wastes produced in research facilities.