Projects

Biotechnological Hub of the NIB (BTH-NIB)

The purpose of the investment project BTH-NIB is the assurance of the appropriate infrastructural conditions for the use of research and developmental opportunities in the fields of operation of the NIB.

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Development of new, environment-friendly approaches for plant and human virus inactivation in waters

Project coordinator: Prof. Dr Maja Ravnikar

Code: L4-9325

Duration: 1.7.2018 - 30.6.2021

The authors acknowledge that the project L4-9325 was financially supported by the Slovenian Research Agency.

The project seeks to achieve a breakthrough in the existing water treatment methods for virus disinfection, bringing in an innovative, efficient and environment-friendly way of inactivating viruses by combining two novel and promising treatments, cavitation and plasma. In the first stage we shall separately investigate the effect of hydrodynamic cavitation and gaseous plasma on the integrity and infectivity of selected waterborne plant and human viruses or their surrogates, to assess the applicability of both for water decontamination purposes. In the second phase, we will explore the synergistic effect of plasma and cavitation for the first time to further increase the efficiency of virus elimination. With combined device we expect to achieve better efficiency of decontamination and consequently shorter treatment times, leading to smaller energy consumption, without additional need for chemical decontamination.

Link to the projects website - http://projects.nib.si/virout