Accurate and representative measure of treatment
system performance in removing Cryptosporidium
depends on the nature of the surrogate. This research was
undertaken to assess the performance of two point-of-use
(POU) systems in removing microbial contaminants and
to evaluate appropriate surrogates for Cryptosporidium
removal in POU systems with charged media.
The POU devices tested achieved virtually complete
removal of microbial contaminants and satisfied the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency requirements of
microbial purifiers for Escherichia coli and viruses. In
addition, results showed that Bacillus subtilis spores
were a more reasonable and effective conservative surrogate
for Cryptosporidium removal than were polystyrene
latex beads for separation systems that function
predominantly on charge mechanisms. Furthermore,
the spores offer the advantages of being easy to separate
and quantify. Given the expensive and time-consuming
analytical techniques for Cryptosporidium,
utility managers will want to select the most appropriate
surrogates to evaluate the performance of treatment
systems. Includes 39 references, tables.
| Edition : | Vol. 100 - No. 12 |
| Number of Pages : | 10 |
| Published : | 12/01/2008 |
