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Because of the growing need to eliminate undesirable microorganisms in different industrial treatments, mainly in the food and agricultural sector and the pharmaceutical industry, a number of increasingly effective systems for disinfection to eliminate microorganisms have been devised. This article analyzes different methods to eliminate and/or significantly reduce the number of microorganisms in industrial contexts and in environmental engineering. Although, in the past, thermal treatments had been used most frequently for microbial elimination, the method is costly and has the disadvantage of modifying the organoleptic and/or physicochemical properties of the food products. For this reason, new technologies rapidly are being developed, such as high-intensity pulsed electric fields, high-pressure systems, ultrasounds, and irradiation, which effectively eliminate microorganisms without deteriorating the properties of the product. These emerging technologies are potentially applicable in the field of environmental engineering. Water Environ. Res., 83, 233 (2011).

This article presents the results of a research study that analyzed the effect that secondary biofilm treatment systems had on particle size distribution (PSD) in the effluent of wastewater treatment plants. This study focused on three biofilm technologies (i.e. a submerged biofilter system, a trickling filter system, and a rotating biological contactor system) in three working urban wastewater treatment plants. For this purpose, the variation of the fit parameters was analyzed after modeling the PSD with the power law. The greatest reduction in particle number was obtained with the submerged biofilter system, followed by the trickling filter system. In contrast, the rotating biological contactor showed the smallest reduction in particle number under the conditions of our study. It was also found that the variation of the fit parameters of the PSD, caused by the wastewater treatments was related to other wastewater parameters, such as the chemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, and the mean particle size. This showed a direct relation between these parameters and the particles in wastewater.

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