RESUMO
Free living nematodes due to their active movement and resistance to chlorination; don't remove in conventional water treatment processes thus can be entered to distribution systems and cause adverse health effects. UV irradiation can be used as a method of inactivating these organisms. This study is done to investigate the effect of ultraviolet lamp on inactivation of free living nematode [Rhabitidae] in water. The effects of duration of irradiation, turbidity, temperature, UV dose and pH are investigated in this study. Ultraviolet lamp used in this study was a 11 watt lamp with intensity of 24 micro w / cm[2]. Contact time required to achieve 100% efficiency for larvae nematodes and adults were 9 and 10 minutes, respectively. Increase of turbidity up to 25 NTU decreased inactivation efficiency of larvae and adult nematodes from 100% to 66% and 100% to 64%, respectively. Change in pH ranged from 6 to 9 did not affect the efficiency of inactivation. With increasing temperature inactivation rate increased. The results showed that there was a significant correlation between the increase in contact time, temperature rise and turbidity reduction with inactivation efficiency of lamp]p<0.001[. Also the effect of the lamp on inactivation of larvae nematode was more than the adults