Medical wastewater contains a wide range of complex pollutants and requires proper treatment to reduce environmental impacts. You may wonder why reactive oxygen can be detected in some medical wastewater samples while others contain none. Is reactive oxygen also an important parameter for online monitoring of medical wastewater?
The principle is straightforward. Disinfectants are widely applied in medical wastewater treatment for sterilization. There are many types of disinfectants, including commonly used chlorine-based formulations. When chlorine dosing is adopted for disinfection, residual reactive oxygen may not be present. With the continuous development of wastewater treatment technology, reactive oxygen disinfection has become a common solution for hospital wastewater, which makes it necessary to measure reactive oxygen levels in the effluent.
So how can we measure reactive oxygen content in medical wastewater? After reactive oxygen disinfectant is added into wastewater, it reacts with pollutants to convert them into harmless substances or inactivate harmful microbes. It is challenging to precisely control the dosage of reactive oxygen in every application. Therefore, a reactive oxygen online analyzer can be installed at the outlet to test residual reactive oxygen content. Operators can check the measured data against relevant standards to confirm whether the effluent meets discharge requirements.
Supplementary Text
Reactive oxygen, also referred to as potassium peroxymonosulfate, is commonly used for disinfection of biological wastewater, aquaculture wastewater and other water types. Medical wastewater also needs post-disinfection treatment to limit the growth of bacteria and viruses and reduce risks to the environment and human health. This disinfection method relies on oxidation performance to oxidize the protein structure of harmful bacteria and microorganisms for microbial inactivation, and it is widely applied in hospital scenarios. No matter where it is used, monitoring residual concentrations after disinfection helps lower the risk of secondary pollution.
