Water purification using polyelectrolyte modified cellulose fibers and filters to adsorb bacteria

Abstract: Clean water is necessary for human survival and there is a need for development of cheap and easy water purification techniques to use in emergency situations when there is no access to safe drinking water. Bacteria contaminated water can cause lethal diarrheal diseases and is globally the second most common cause of death among children less than five years of age.Bacteria adsorbing filter paper made from cellulose could be an environmentally and economically sustainable alternative for disposable water purification filters. This thesis investigates the possibility to use polyelectrolyte multilayer modified cellulose pulp fibers and filter papers to adsorb and remove bacteria from water. The bacterial removal efficiency of the modified materials has been tested both in suspension and through filtration.The surface modification provides the cellulose fibers with a positively charged surface that can attract and bind the negatively charged bacteria. The bacterial adsorption through electrostatic interactions makes it possible to remove bacteria, even when the pore size of the cellulose filters is larger than bacteria. Bacterial reduction tests shows that it is possible to remove over 99.9 % of the bacteria when filtering water through the modified materials. An increased amount of adsorbed cationic polyelectrolyte, polyvinylamine, resulted in an increased bacterial removal capacity. It has also been shown that the bacterial removal efficiency increases with an increased the amount of bacteria adsorbing materials in the filter.The modified materials have been compared with a commercial product and the filtration efficiency has shown to be greater for the polyelectrolyte-modified materials, under the test conditions used in this thesis. Tests with natural water samples shows that it is important to use a filtration mode to remove particles from the water in combination with the bacterial adsorption, as the particles interfere with the bacterial adsorption.