Abstract
Although ultraviolet (UV) and persulfate (PS) have been widely used in water disinfection process, their incompleteness of disinfection, such as inducing the production of viable but non-culturable cells (VBNC), has attracted extensive attention. In this study, the disinfection effect of combined UV and PS was evaluated, and the roles of SO4•- and HO• radicals in UV/PS disinfection were also analyzed. UV/PS more effectively inactivated cells and reduced the number of culturable cells. Also, the test of bacterial dark activation suggested that UV/PS disinfection inhibited the recovery of VBNC bacteria. The mechanisms of UV/PS disinfection were the increase of membrane permeability and oxidative stress, where SO4•- radicals played more role than HO• radicals. Furthermore, UV/PS disinfection more significantly perturbed the metabolism of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (p < 0.05), mainly involving glyoxylate and dicarboxylic acid metabolism, aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, Alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, and citric acid cycle (TCA cycle). In short, UV/PS disinfection can not only significantly reduce the number of culturable bacteria (kill bacteria) but also inhibits the recovery of VBNC bacteria.