Sonication for advanced drinking water treatment

This paper investigated the feasibility of sonication as an advanced treatment method for drinking water production and used comprehensive indexes of water quality to examine its efficiency. Results show that sonication significantly reduces the toxicity of water. Sonication with 5 W/L at 90 kHz lasting for 30 rain decreases the water SUVA and the disinfection byproduct formation potential （DBPFP） by 38.7% and 27. 2% respectively. Sonication also decreases the UV254 by more than 50% through destroying unsaturated chemical bonds. Higher sound intensity and higher frequency benefit the reduction of TOC and UV254. Besides, sonication significantly increases the affinity of organics with granular activated carbon （ GAC ） , and thus the hybrid sonication-GAC method reduces the water TOC, COD, UV254, and DBPFP by 78.3%, 69.4%, 75.7%, and 70.0% respectively. Therefore, sonication and the hybrid sonication-GAC metbod are proposed as advanced treatment methods for drinking water.