Peracetic acid disinfection: An effective way to reduce antibiotics resistant bacteria from raw hospital wastewater

Abstract

Risk of infection from antibiotic resistant bacteria from wastewater to the workers in the plant can be reduced by disinfecting wastewater. Peracetic acid (PAA) was used to disinfect the raw wastewater from hospital in pilot scale experiment. Batch experiment was conducted in parallel to confirm the dose of PAA used in the pilot experiment. Degradation of PAA was fast that resulted to no residual effect to the process of wastewater treatment plant. Numbers of ciprofloxacin resistant bacteria was reduced from 5·104 cfu/ml to <1·101 cfu/ml using 75 mg/L PAA with 10 min contact time. Similarity on removal of ciprofloxacin resistant bacteria from pilot experiment and batch experiments were observed. Removal of ciprofloxacin resistant bacteria increased by increasing contact time and PAA concentration. The method appears an ideal technology to minimize the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria to the sewage workers when new centralized super hospital are constructed in Denmark utilizing the unbranched direct connection of wastewater from hospital to the WWTP.