In-Situ Active Oxygen and Chlorine Catalytic Formation for Municipal Water Purification

High chemical activity of chlorine and severe health effects after even short-term exposure to it make facilities that use chlorine are subject for potential terrorist attacks. The magnitude of such attacks on U.S. chemical facilities could easily exceed the loss of life suffered on September 11th. Despite the fact, there were no terrorist attack on chlorine-using facilities, a government study has shown that approximately 60,000 commercial chemical accidents occur every year, killing more than 250 people annually.We propose to use photocatalytic formation of chlorine and active oxygen for water treatment systems by using titanium dioxide (TiO2) as catalyst and sodium chloride (NaCl ¿ table salt) as chlorine source. While oxygen and chlorine will oxidize and disinfect water supplies, chlorine will also insure residual effect of the treatment and prevent re-growth of organisms. Removal of the some of the organic contaminants with water will reduce amount of chlorinated byproducts and thus reduce of chlorine consumption for water purification