The unavailability of clean and safe water, one of the biggest global problems, affects environmental safety as well as the quality of life of all organisms, from plants to animals and humans. One of the reasons for the development of this problem is the increasing number and variety of water pollutants. Among these, viruses are of growing concern. Waterborne plant viruses can destroy entire crops, leading to high financial losses and food shortages, whereas waterborne human viruses, such as enteric viruses, can lead to high hospitalization and mortality rates. The rising number of human infections also places a burden on the environment by increasing waste production. In addition, some symptoms, such as diarrhoea, introduce various pathogens into the water environment, which can affect its safety.
Because waterborne viruses cause many problems, it is important to inactivate them. Commonly used water treatments have some limitations, such as inadequate virus inactivation, high cost and energy consumption, and production of toxic by-products and waste. Therefore, it is important to develop new, green technologies for water treatment such as cold plasma and hydrodynamic cavitation. Our group has combined the two methods and constructed a device that allows the plasma to be ignited and sustained in a stable supercavitation bubble. In doing so, we have developed the first device in the world that combines these two technologies and cleans water in an environmentally friendly way, positively impacting the safety of the water environment and supporting The European Deal initiative for green transition. Since the combination of plasma and supercavitation is a novelty, there are no data on its inactivation potential except for our initial results, which showed great virus inactivation after a short treatment time. The excellent results confirmed that it is worthwhile to further explore the potential of plasma-supercavitation technology and fill the knowledge gaps to improve water decontamination.
The proposed project aims to investigate the various important aspects of water decontamination using the combined plasma-supercavitation device. One of the objectives is to evaluate the inactivation of enteric viruses and their surrogates. It is always best to work with viruses targeted by the technology. However, working with enteric viruses can be problematic, so they are often replaced with surrogate viruses. Because different surrogates may respond differently to treatment with different technologies, it is best to study inactivation of more than one surrogate with the same technology. In this way, the inactivation range of the technology as well as its inactivation potential against enteric viruses can be determined. Another objective of the project is to compare and combine our novel technology with other water treatments such as UV irradiation or ozonation, which could additionally improve water decontamination. The effect of different amounts of organic material on the inactivation potential of the technology will also be investigated, as water used for various purposes may contain different levels of organic material and pollutants. The final objective of the project is to conduct preliminary inactivation tests on bacteria using the combined technology, which will provide an excellent foundation for future work on inactivating various pollutant with this technology. The originality of our approach to obtain a complete biotechnological application lies in the interdisciplinary combination of the world of physics and mechanical engineering together with microbiology, molecular biology and water treatment. As such, it would help improve water decontamination with the breakthrough green combined plasma-supercavitation technology, which would help provide clean and safe water environment in the accordance with the European Green Deal.
The project is funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS)
ARRS project ID: Z7-50151
Duration: 1.10.2023 – 30.9.2025
