Author(s)

Djamel Ghernaout^1,2*, Noureddine Elboughdiri^1,3, Badia Ghernaout⁴, Ghulam Abbas Ashraf⁵, Mhamed Benaissa¹

¹Chemical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, University of Ha’il, Ha’il, Saudi Arabia.
²Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Blida, Blida, Algeria.
³Chemical Engineering Process Department, National School of Engineers, University of Gabes, Gabes, Tunisia.
⁴Mechanical Engineering Department, Amar Tlidji University of Laghouat, Laghouat, Algeria.
⁵Department of Physics, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China.

Waterborne viruses account for 30% to 40% of infectious diarrhea, and some viruses could persevere for some months in nature and move up to 100 m in groundwater. Using filtration setups, coagulation could lessen virus charges as an efficient pre-treatment for reducing viruses. This work discusses the present-day studies on virus mitigation using coagulation in its three versions i.e., chemical coagulation (CC), enhanced coagulation, and electrocoagulation (EC), and debates the new results of virus demobilization. The complexity of viruses as bioparticles and the process of virus demobilization should be adopted, even if the contribution of permeability in virus sorption and aggregation needs to be clarified. The information about virion permeability has been evaluated by interpreting empirical electrophoretic mobility (EM). No practical measures of virion permeability exist, a clear link between permeability and virion composition and morphology has not been advanced, and the direct influence of inner virion structures on surface charge or sorption has yet to be conclusively demonstrated. CC setups utilizing zero-valent or ferrous iron could be killed by iron oxidation, possibly using EC and electrooxidation (EO) methods. The oxidants evolution in the iron oxidation method has depicted promising findings in demobilizing bacteriophage MS2, even if follow-up investigations employing an elution method are needed to secure that bacteriophage elimination is related to demobilization rather than sorption. As a perspective, we could be apt to anticipate virus conduct and determine new bacteriophage surrogates following subtle aspects such as protein structures or genome size and conformation. The present discussion’s advantages would extend far beyond an application in CC—from filtration setups to demobilization by nanoparticles to modeling virus fate and persistence in nature.

Viruses, Chemical Coagulation (CC), Enhanced Coagulation (EnC), Electrocoagulation (EC), Electrophoretic Mobility (EM), Natural Organic Matter (NOM)

Ghernaout, D. , Elboughdiri, N. , Ghernaout, B. , Ashraf, G. and Benaissa, M. (2023) Virus Removal by Iron Coagulation Processes. Green and Sustainable Chemistry, 13, 171-208. doi: 10.4236/gsc.2023.133010.