Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs), perchlorate, pathogens, and numeral trace organic contaminants are among the most important emerging water quality issues. In order to safe guard the water quality, several processes are available to deal with these emerging contaminants. These methods can be grouped conveniently into those dealing with phase transfer (i.e., separation and concentration) and those involving phase transformation (i.e., decomposition). Among the various methods that transform the contaminants in question chemically, sonochemistry becomes an attractive alternative. 

The speaker will introduce Sonochemistry which requires no addition of chemicals and is easy to implement and apply. The applications of sonochemical process for water purification will be discussed with three examples: the inactivation of Cryptosporidium, the degradation of disinfection byproducts, and polycyclic hydrocarbons. Results indicated that sonochemical process is effective in degrading halogenated methanes and polycyclic hydrocarbons and inactivate Cryptosporidium.

Speaker
Prof. C. P. Huang, Donald C. Philips Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Delaware.