Plasmonics driven engineered pasteurizers for solar water disinfection (SWADIS).

Abstract

Rampant environmental pollution is the most ubiquitous concern of current world. A sustainable panacea to overarching contamination of water-borne pathogens demands cheap and eco-friendly oriented research. Solar energy is effortlessly accessible in most of the weather conditions and can be used for water decontamination. In this context, Solar Water Disinfection (SWADIS) appears to be feasible solution. Herein we are reporting newly developed Carbon nanoparticles (CNP) which shows absorption of light in broad region extending from Ultraviolet-Visible (UV) to Infrared Spectroscopy (IR). This CNP with pronounced photothermal effect has been used for SWADIS. Photothermal effect of plasmonic nanomaterials has massive potential and has exploited for disinfection of water. Moving towards practical device design we have developed an efficient CNP based Multipurpose Solar Pasteurizer (MSP) and Nano-Solar Pasteurizer (NSP) which can efficiently perform the SWADIS. Result shows that upon irradiation under natural solar radiation pasteurizers can thermally inactivate the bacteria. The system proves to be able to perform 100% bacterial inactivation in sunny days. We also conducted bacterial inactivation experiments by simulating 106 CFU mL-1 concentration of E. coli in water to mimic field conditions. Results are evident that pasteurizers achieved 100% bacterial inactivation within period of ˜45\u2009min under sunlight.