New Method of Water and Wastewater Treatment Using Electron Beams

Release of several types of pollutants to the environment and implementation of ever strict environmental rules and the inability of traditional treatment methods to completely eliminate or reduce the pollutants to a standards level lead to study and develop of new treatment processes such as the electron beams. The electron beams irradiation to water and wastewater resulting generation of reducing and oxidizing species (OH•, H•, e-aq) that react quickly and non-selectively with contaminants in the water and wastewater and then decompotion them. In this paper, the history of using of electron beam and its applications in environmental pollution control in various scales, electron accelerators as electron beams production tools, reactors used for irradiation, Factors affecting the efficiency of this method, electron beams systems and advantages and disadvantages of electron beams is presented. Due to the strengths of this method than conventional methods and also lower costs and better performance, especially in the field of disinfection, sewage, sludge and color removal of wastewater industries, in the near future, is not far from the mind to be introduced as one of the key technologies in protecting the environment.