Ozone For Food Sanitation

SWC 351 Water Supply and Sanitary Engineering

By
Rizwanul Fahad
S.Siyamalan
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Introduction
• Ozone was first used to disinfect water supplies in
France in the early 1900s.
• There are well over 1000 ozone disinfection
installations worldwide,
– almost entirely for treating water supplies.

On December 15, 2005 the Metropolitan Water District

of Southern California announced their official move to
replace its chlorination water treatment system with a
massive ozone system, to the tune of $3.5 billion.

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Contents..
• Ozone -generation -commercial used in food industry.

• ozone to purify -public drinking water -foods.

• Brief comparison of ozone to chlorination.

• Its Drawbacks,

• Costs and efficacy compared to Chlorine

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Disinfection by Ozone
• Once ozone has done its damage to impurities, it
naturally converts back to O2, or stable oxygen.
• It is now clearly proven to be a powerful cleaning
agent with end products without carcinogenic chemical
residues
– as occurs with chlorination.

• The fact is ozone is the strongest of all molecules

available for disinfection in water treatment.

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Ozone Disinfection systems
components
1. Facilities for Preparation of the feed gas,
2. The Ozone generation facilities,
3. Facilities for contacting the ozone with the liquid to
be disinfected, &
4. Facilities for destruction of off-gas.

O3 + HO2 HO + 2O2
HO + 2O2 H2O + O2
Here the free radicals formed, HO2 & HO are the
active disinfectors

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Overall Disinfection process

Source: Fig 12-29 Waste Water Engineering

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1.Preparation of Feed Gas
• The air used for generation of ozone should be
conditioned.
• Steps involved were,
1. Gas compression
2. Air cooling and drying &
3. Air filtration

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2.Ozone Generation
• Generated by electrical discharges such as lightning
and by high-energy electromagnetic radiation
• Because ozone is chemically unstable, its decomposes
to oxygen very rapidly after generation, and thus must
be generated onsite.
• The primary process used commercially today to make
ozone is electrical discharge, or corona discharge.

This is the preferred method for the water

treatment industry.

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2.Ozone Generation

Source: Fig 12-29 Waste Water Engineering

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3.Reactor
• Followed by Ozone contact reactors and also
Destruction of Off-gases.
• Here ozone will be contacted by 3 chamber covered
contactor.
– Fast ozone reactions in 1st chamber,
– Disinfection in 2nd,
– Slow reactions and Ozone decomposition in 3rd chamber
respectively

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Its Effectiveness..
And if ozone cannot effectively treat a water quality problem, it’s
likely that no other available oxidant could do the job either.

• In general, ozone is used commercially to:

– Disinfect water before it is bottled

– Kill bacteria, yeast and protozoa on food-contact surfaces such

as fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds, nuts, legumes, and all
animal meats

– Kill yeast and mold spores that float in the air

– Chemically attack (oxidize) impurities in water such as iron,

arsenic, hydrogen sulfide, nitrites and organic clumps

– Oxidize and degrade many organic pollutants 11

Its disinfective action..
• In order to disinfect organisms, ozone must come in
physical contact with them.
• But it only takes ozone a few seconds of contact time
to destroy pathogens.
• In fact, no pathogen can survive 1.5 milligrams of
ozone per liter for 5 minutes at normal drinking water
pH and temperatures.

By 2010 the entire city of Los Angeles will be

dumping its current chlorination system and
sanitizing its water instead with ozone.
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Its Benefits..
• Some additional benefits of ozone in the food preparation
industry are that it:
– Extends the shelf life of food products
– Is much safer for employees than any conventionalc
chemicals
– Eliminates all chemical usage and is chemical-free,
without the chemical by-products of chlorination
– Eliminates the use of hot water and conventional
sanitizer
– Is generated on site, thus eliminating the transporting,
storing and handling of otherwise hazardous materials
– Is very inexpensive to produce once a generator is in use
– Permits recycling of wastewater 13
Impacts on waste water constituents incase of Waste
Water Disinfection

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Source: Table 12-21 Waste Water Engineering
Comparing Ozone to Chlorine
• Chlorine -traditionally sanitizer in the food industry.
• Growing concern about the widespread use of chlorine.

• According to a 2004 article in the Journal of

Environmental Science and Health,
– when chlorine reacts with naturally occurring substances
carcinogenic compounds such as trihalomethanes and
haloacetic acids will be formed

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Ozone over Chlorine Beverage industry
• Even before ozone received GRAS status,
The food and beverage industry had begun to
recognize its potential as a disinfectant and as an
alternative to chlorine, which traditionally has been used
to treat food processing water.

– This is because ozone eliminates a problem

associated with chlorine disinfection

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The U.S. President’s Council on Environmental
Quality stated,

“there is increased evidence for an

association between rectal, colon and bladder
cancer and the consumption of chlorinated
drinking water.”

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Drawbacks..
• Ozone has its own potential safety drawback that
deserves mentioning.
• If ozone at very high concentrations and very long
contact times is used in water that has a broad range of
organic compounds, it can produce a variety of by-
products.

The by-products that are of concern,

aldehyde, bromate, and other organo-bromine
compounds.

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Cost..
• Worth mentioning is that depending on the particular use and
application, chlorine is generally less expensive.
• But as newer applications are being discovered and a greater
need for safety and quality, ozone is becoming less expensive
overall with superior results.

For example, one must consider the inherent costs of

chlorine’s transport, cleanup and storage of potentially
hazardous toxic chemicals.

In contrast, ozone is generated from harmless oxygen.

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Efficacy
• Ozone is highly reactive molecule, killing bacteria and
other microbes 3,000 times faster than chlorine.

• Because it is so highly reactive, ozone is also effective

at removing organic contaminates that grow on food
processing equipment.

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Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and
industrial chemicals
• Ozone is being reported to oxidize a number of
pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other Priority
Hazardous Substances.
• This can often be done by ozone alone.
• However, even better results occur when ozone in
combined with ultraviolet light, hydrogen peroxide, or
titanium dioxide.

This is an effect that is certainly not found

with chlorination.

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Summary
• Ozone is becoming the preferred method for
disinfecting water supplies for many reasons, primarily
effectiveness and health safety.
• Ozone has now been recommended by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration for sanitizing food supplies
of all types.
• Ozone is proving to be the best technology available
and is gradually replacing older methods for many
cleaning applications.

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“We recommend Ozone to be used for a new
generation of healthier and safer foods”

Thank You

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References
• 12-7 Disinfection with Ozone ,
Waste Water engineering, IV edition,
Metcalf and Eddy Pg No.(1286-1295)

• http://www.elementozone.com/white_paper_v1.5.pdf

• http://www.ozoneapplications.com

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