In acidic waters, more sustainable ozone

2008/06/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Mikrobiologia
• Kimika

Ozone is a good water disinfectant. However, the ozone molecule does not last long as it reacts with the OH- groups of water and becomes an oxygen molecule. A team from Anjou University of South Korea has shown that the solution to increase ozone duration is water acidification. In neutral water, in water with pH 7, only 23 minutes are needed to transform half the ozone into oxygen, while if acidified until reaching a pH 4 of water it takes 3 hours. Researchers estimate that in this pH ozone kills 25 times more microbes than in neutral water.