Evaluating Low-Frequency Ultrasound as a Pretreatment to Improve Ozonation Antimicrobial Efficacy in Urban Wastewater Treatment.

ABSTRACT: Technologies based on oxidation processes, particularly ozonation, have shown great potential for microbiological wastewater (WW) treatment. Applying low-frequency ultrasound (LF-US) can cause sublethal damage to microbial cells by generating nanobubbles, potentially enhancing their sensitivity to ozonation. Thus, primary urban WWs spiked with Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecium, and Pseudomonas fluorescens were subjected to laboratory-scale ozonation with or without LF-US pretreatment. LF-US pretreatment increased the antimicrobial efficiency of ozonation for all targets, with the most significant increase of 5.16 ± 0.17 Log CFU/mL for P. fluorescens (LF-US 600 s followed by ozone 120 s) and 0.57 ± 0.08 Log CFU/mL for Ent. faecium (LF-US 300 s followed by ozone 30 

SUBMITTER: Moretti A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12935695 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature