Recent advances in electrochemical sterilization

Pathogenic bacteria have been throwing great threat on human health for thousands of years, so their steril-ization is imperative. Electrochemical sterilization, as an emerging technology for sterilization in wastewater through direct and indirect effect of electric field, is receiving increasing attentions due to their effectiveness, simpleness and cost-effectiveness, compared with the traditional thermal methods. According to different ster-ilization devices and sterilization voltages used in sterilization, electrochemical sterilization methods are divided into high-voltage pulsed electric field (PEF) sterilization and electrocatalytic sterilization in this review. High-voltage PEF sterilization can change the permeability of cell membrane and thus form irreversible electroporation under high-voltage electric fields to inactivate bacteria while electrocatalytic sterilization mainly inactivates bacteria through direct oxidation, indirect oxidation, electroporation and electric field destruction. In order to provide the researchers with latest progress of electrochemical sterilization, typical materials applied in high-voltage PEF sterilization and electrocatalytic sterilization in the last five years are summarized. Moreover, present difficulties and future directions for their applications are also discussed. It could provide guidance for the new researchers on the study of electrochemical sterilization methods for rapid, effective sterilization in practical applications.