Impact of the WDN on Bacteria and Spores of Fungi

Abstract

Bactericidity of the WDN depends on the inputted energy and properties of the electrodes’ metal. Bactericidal effect was observed for both low (10³ ml⁻¹) and high (up to 10⁷ ml⁻¹) concentrations of bacteria. During 24 h (for most of bacteria within 4 h or less), almost all tested microorganisms and spores of microscopic fungi are killed. That fact indicates the effectiveness of using of water dispersions of metal nanoparticles as bactericidal agents. Potential applications of the method of water treatment by PED may be quite broad: disinfection of water and its long-term storage; usage of WDN for sanitary and antimoldy treatment of swimming pools, saunas, enclosed spaces, and treatment of seed, etc. At equal concentration of ions in two kinds of dispersions, the bactericidal action of dispersion, which contains both ions and nanoparticles, is higher than one containing only ions. Nanoparticles and clusters do not penetrate inside the bacteria but settle down on their cell walls and produce streams of toxic ions , which destroy the bacteria. Prolonged microbial resistance of water is the cooperative bactericidal action on bacteria of both oxide nanoparticles and positive ions emitting by them. The importance of this investigation is that the obtained results connect the PRMW with the parameters of PED and with properties of metal electrodes, moreover, the results give the opportunity to produce the dispersions with the required bactericidal properties, which can be considered as the bactericidal agents.