| Summary: | Water contaminated by pathogens poses the greatest threat to public health globally.
Throughout the decades, there have been numerous technologies developed for the purification
of water and electro-disinfection has emerged as a promising alternative treatment method. The
efficacy of electro-disinfection has been extensively studied with investigations conducted on
parameters such as electrode material and electrolyte. Non-portable water purifiers employing
electro-disinfection have also been developed for commercial purposes. In this work, platinized
titanium as electrodes were investigated for their capability to inactivate E. coli in different
electrolyte media. Based on this investigation, the feasibility of developing a portable water
purifier using platinized titanium was subsequently studied. Platinized titanium electrodes were
found to be capable of inactivating E. coli in different electrolyte solutions with the inactivation
trend of NaCl > Na2SO4 > NaNO3 obtained. The cathode was individually investigated and
found to have a greater E. coli inactivation capability than the anode. Using platinized titanium
as the electrodes, the development of a portable water purifier prototype was found to be
feasible where 32% of E.coli was inactivated by 6 hour achieving a log(N/N0) of -5, although
much higher inactivation from shorter times could be obtained using a bench top electrolytic
system. Therefore, further optimizations on the prototype need to be performed to improve its
disinfection capability.
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