Membrane integrity for virus particle removal

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Background and Relevance

In light of the growing importance of microporous and semipermeable membranes in the Australian water industry the objectives of this project are to:

• Review the status of literature on pathogen and indicator removal efficacy for synthetic membrane processes.
• Document standing protocols and techniques for monitoring membrane integrity.
• Investigate novel integrity testing methods, which may allow the detection of smaller breaches that are more sensitive than currently used methods. These will be explored with a view to recommending two or more such methods for trial in the project.
• Review the failure modes, likelihood of failures and plant reliability.
• Canvas properties of common commercial membrane fibres and sheets; assembly of membrane fibres and sheets into membrane elements and configuration of membrane elements in full scale water reclamation plants.
• The information will be used to understand failure modes and the likelihood of failure.