A new approach to testing the efficacy of drinking water disinfectants - ScienceDirect
***** "test rig working in a flow-through mode similar to the disinfection procedures in waterworks, but under tightly defined conditions, including very short contact times. To quantify the influence of DOC, temperature and pH on the efficacy of two standard disinfectants, chlorine and chlorine dioxide, simulated use tests were systematically performed. This test rig enabled quantitative comparison of the reduction of four test organisms, two viruses and two bacteria, in response to disinfection. Chlorine was substantially more effective against Enterococcus faecium than chlorine dioxide whereas the latter was more effective against the bacteriophage MS2, especially at pH values of >7.5 at which chlorine efficacies already decline. Contrary to expectation, ***bacteria were not generally reduced more quickly than viruses.*** Overall, the results confirm a high efficacy of chlorine and chlorine dioxide, validating them as standard disinfectants for assessing the efficacy of new disinfectants"