Development of a Water Security Filtration System for Whole House Water Supply

The waterborne disease outbreaks have been a constant reminder of the critical importance of ensuring safe drinking water. Properly designed and operated public water systems, either large or small, are required to protect public health. This paper presents the results of tests conducted on a multi-layer cartridge based small system that combines physical filtration with chemical adsorption and ultraviolet light disinfection. The system was challenged with test water containing different levels of turbidity, a number of biological contaminants including B. subtilis, E. coli, MS2 bacteriophage and Polystyrene Latex (PSL) beads (as a surrogate for Cryptosporidium) and a number of chemical contaminants including methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), high chlorine concentrations, drinking water treatment disinfection byproducts (DBPs) including trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, arsenic and diazinon. This paper benchmarks the baseline performance of the system in removing physical, biological and chemical contaminants and identifies the areas for further development. The applicability of the system as a home water security device was evaluated.