Enhanced biodegradation of wastewater with electron beam pretreatment.

The traditional biological aerobic treatment of domestic wastewater only reduces the pathogen load, biological oxygen demand (BOD), and chemical oxygen demand (COD) to some extent. Irradiation with electrons to 1kGy alone was found to be sufficient to eliminate all the pathogens, but no significant reduction in COD and BOD was observed. However, electron irradiation to 1kGy followed by the biological treatment resulted in more complete and faster reduction in the pathogen count, COD, and BOD than the biological treatment alone.