Integrated modelling of ozonation processes in water treatment

This paper presents the formulation of an integrated Back Flow Cell Model (IBFCM) for ozonation processes by incorporating together the contactor hydrodynamics, mass transfer, ozone decay in water, microbial inactivation, and disinfection by-products formation to describe the significance of their interrelated nature in determining the overall process performance. It also summarizes the experimental procedures that could be used to quantify the characteristic parameters for each process component. The model applicability was then illustrated by comparing the predictions with the experimentally observed dissolved ozone profiles. Further analysis was made to demonstrate the model application for predicting the disinfection efficiency and disinfection by-products formation simultaneously. From these analyses, it was also found that during the ozonation of natural waters, the ozone decay could not be described by the simple first order rate expression.