PROJECT DETAILS
- Project No 2018
- Project Name Real time integrity monitoring for high pressure membrane systems
- Lead Organisation Coliban Water
- Research Lead Victoria University
- Main Researcher Stephen Gray
- Completion Year 2012
Project Description
Membranes are used to remove viruses from treated wastewater to make it safe for discharge or recycling. It is important to monitor the integrity of membranes and check that viruses cannot break through. This creates a need for surrogates that are cheaper, safer and easier to use than the non-hazardous indicator virus currently applied to test membrane integrity. This research synthesised a series of fluorescent nanoparticles with similar dimensions to viruses, with the idea that the fluorescence would support continuous in situ monitoring in real time, but unfortunately the nanoparticles did not emit enough fluorescence and could not be detected in the product water.