Abstract
Ozonation has been considered as one of the best ways of purifying water in recent years. It is among the best-introduced ways of purifying water in the whole world. This report aims at demonstrating why ozonation is the best-preferred method among the rest of the methods of water purification. It also shows the differences in the environmental keeping of the given methods of water purification.
Introduction
This report tends to look at the different techniques of purifying water in the water industry. There are three water purification methods in the world, and this paper looks at ozonation as one of the methods. The paper compares ozonation method with the rest of the methods.
Findings
Ultra violet light as a method of water purification assists in the treatment of the water system by removing the waterborne pathogens (Oparaku et al., 2011). This mainly removes the pathogens by increasing the intensity of the radiation to the water source where the radiation is usually stronger than that of the sun.
When it is subjected to the water, it removes all pathogens within the parameter of the 254 (nm) wavelengths. Most of the ultra violet light purification consists of filters. Pathogens that can also be removed by such purification are viruses, cryptosporidium and yeast.
Another method used in water treatment is a reverse osmosis. This is a technique that makes use of a specific kind of membrane to allow solvents to pass through (Doroodmand et al., 2011). This results in some solutes remaining on the membrane hence allowing the solute and the solvent to be separated. It operates mostly under pressure from the external sources to provide a reverse order of osmosis. This is usually created by making holes on the membrane to allow the passage of the solvent to the other side.
Ozonation method works by passing high wavelength radiations, such as ultra violet waves. This creates the formation of ozone, which is usually very unstable in water (Bidhendi et al., 2006). When it is placed in water, it tends to be toxic. The property gives it power to kill harmful pathogens and cysts. The power behind ozone is because it is an oxidizing agent and therefore can kill many pathogens (Bidhendi et al., 2006).
There are limitations to the use of ultra violet light as a method of purification of water system. From the technological point of view, ultra violet cannot remove some of the contaminations that have serious implications, such as chlorine, volatile organic and poisonous metals such as mercury, magnesium and iron in the water system. Such metals are considered to be very dangerous for human health in particular.
Content of the products, such as petrol or even paints cannot be eliminated by this method in the water system. The volatile organic components are known to be toxic and even fatal. Components such a granular carbon also cannot be removed without filters and hence the method has certain limitations. Ultra violet light does not remove chlorine compounds found in the water bodies. Things such as arsenic, radon, iron, heavy metals, nitrates, chlorine, and VOC’s are also not removed by this method.
In reverse osmosis, it is considered that the house appliances that have this technique in the house have a lower-pressure rate than the industrial ones. This factor is also a limitation in the water system. This results into most of the water that was being purified to be wasted because of a decreased pressure of the home appliances.
In the reverse osmosis, most of the countries do not allow the water that has been purified by this method to be taken to outlets of copper tanks. This is because the membrane on the reverse osmosis is considered to be acidic, hence has the power to corrode the copper pipes in the water system.
This acidity is considered by most of the countries to cause rusting in the iron pipes. From the past years, the world health organization has criticized taking water as they insist that it has health risks. The membrane that is used to purify the water in the reverse method is considered to be very acidic.
Viruses bring about 70% of sickness in children worldwide and about 60% of diseases in the adults, but ozone has increasingly assisted in the reduction of such cases in the recent years. Ozonation method has also been seen as the main way to reduce infections among Aids victims.
Children tend to have high metabolic rate from chlorinated water that is removed by the ozone method. It does not use chemicals for water purification. It is also seen through the processes of ozone formation that ozone does not affect water pH. The reduction in elimination of detergents from water has drastically changed the usage of ozone as a method of purification in the world.
It was noted that there is reduced solid suspension in water in industries all over the world. This method also ensures that there is enough oxygen in the water for human consumption. The production of water through this process is organic in nature, thus it is environmentally friendly.
In water treatment industries, this method ensures that the last stage in the water purification has been reached and hence it guarantees bacterium free water. This method has also been approved as producing the best water that helps in the cleansing food products in other parts of the world. Such water can also be used to clean old bottles. Ozonation provides water for hospitals, for cleaning bruises, wounds and burns. Ozonation in the water treatment industries also results in the formation of antifungal agents and antibacterial agents.
Ozonation is considered to be the best method of purifying water in the world. This is due to the advantages that it has over other methods. First, there are microbial removers and is rapid in disinfecting the water system. It is also considered to be one of the best removers of magnesium and iron metals from the water body.
The method is the best among the rest because it has no by-products. Due to its power to oxidize, it reduces the effect of heavy metals such as iron and magnesium. It has the highest efficiency in filtration by 50% more than the other methods. The method is able to remove the taste of chlorine from the water. It is also considered to be the only method that has no problems when it comes to excess of the chemicals used.
Ultra violet light as a method is considered to be harmful because it results in health problems. Mostly, the volatile organic matter in the water bodies has led to the toxicity of water causing death.
In recent years, chlorine has been seen as one of the major causes of illness from the water system (Oparaku et al., 2011). This is a result of the abundance of compounds of chlorine, which, in its turn, leads to health problems, e.g. people have pains (Savage & Diallo, 2005). The water that is purified by this method is usually regarded as corrosive. It is noted that the pH is usually from 6.8 to 8.1. It can therefore easily corrode iron materials in the house (Bismo et al., 2009).
Ozonation is considered to be the world’s best purifying method because it is environmentally friendly. This can be seen in the way it removes all the contamination from the water system hence leaving it suitable for any use. With the ability to remove the entire odor from the water system, it enables water to be odorless (Bismo et al., 2009). This is made possible by oxidizing the sulphide in the water that usually causes the odor. This also can be seen as the best method of reducing chlorine in the water system hence reducing the health related sicknesses.
The efficiency of ozonation
The cost of using ultra violet light is considered to be high because it needs a lot of electricity. The power required to generate the pressure of the reverse osmosis is also considered to be high. This is because of the pressure needed to purify the water in the homes. The labor also required to remove water from the tanks is also considered to be high. However, when all these factors are taken into account, it is found that this method is cheaper because the raw materials such as air are readily available. There are fewer labor forces required compared to other systems of purification of water systems.
Saudi Arabia is considered to be one of the leading producers of desalination water in the world (Al Barwani & Purnama, 2008). Saudi Arabia is also seen as having used ozonation in the past few years to enhance their water purification. The country is also increasing its infrastructure to ensure that they keep on the high standard of producing water all over the world.
Finally, several plants have been put up in major cities around the country. The plants offer provision of water. Al Jubail desalination plant is one of the plants that have considerably assisted the water production on the global scale. In recent years, the Saudi government has applied for major ozonation plants within the region.
Recommendation
These findings show that ozonation is the best approach among all other methods because it has both economic and environmental power over the rest. It is therefore recommended that all countries should use this method of ozonation.
Conclusion
From the findings in this paper, it can be concluded that ozonation is the best approach among all other methods of water purification because mainly it has the capacity to remove all the heavy metals in the water and provide oxidizing agent for the rest of the components in the water. These components include sulphates, chlorides and iron. The paper has also shown that the method provides odorless water. The method does not leave such components as trihalomethanes in the water. One can therefore conclude that this is the most preferable method of water purification.
References
Al Barwani, H.H. & Purnama, A. (2008). Evaluating the effect of producing desalinated seawater on hypersaline Arabian Gulf. European Journal of Scientific Research, 22(2), 279-285.
Bidhendi, G.R.N., Hoveidi, H.R., Jafari, H.R., Karbassi, A.R. & Nasrabadi, T. (2006). Application of ozonation in drinking water disinfection based on an environmental management strategy approach using SWOT method. Iranian Journal of Environmental Health Science & Engineering, 3(1), 23-30.
Bismo, S., Sutrasno, K., Saksono, N., Karamah, E.F. & Rahardjo, A. (2009). Some aspects of lake water treatment to produce clean water using integration processes of adsorption, filtration and ozonation. World Applied Sciences Journal, 7(4), 472-478.
Doroodmand, M.M., Tahvildar, Z. & Sheikhi, M.H. (2011). Multi-walled carbon nanotubes/polyacrylonitrile composite as novel semi-permeable mixed matrix membrane in reverse osmosis water treatment process. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, 60, 779-782.
Oparaku, N.F., Mgbenka, B.O. & Ibeto, C.N. (2011). Waste water disinfection utilizing ultraviolet light. Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 4(1), 73-78.
Savage, N. & Diallo, M.S. (2005). Nonmaterial and water purification: Opportunities and challenges. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 7, 331-342.