Abstract
Due to the erratic nature of microbial contaminants in drinking water, private and municipality water supply systems failed to deliver safe drinking water to households. In Ethiopia, there is lack of data and knowledge on the effectiveness of filter devices used to treat drinking water at household. This study aims to evaluate efficiency of household point of use filter devices (membrane filter, membrane with activated carbon, ceramic candle type filter and hybrid (multistage)) in reducing bacterial contaminants from drinking water. Percent reduction efficiency model was employed in evaluating bacterial removal efficiency. Membrane filter and membrane with activated carbon filter devices had good total coliform removal efficiency on the 1st and 2nd days than hybrid filter device which showed low removal efficiency. Similarly, all filter devices showed better fecal coliform removal efficiency on the 1st day compared to 2nd day but had low heterotrophic bacteria removal efficiency during the three days filtration. Fecal Streptococcus removal efficiency on the 2nd and 3rd days by all filter devices was low except the first day. The result in general showed that using of point of use filter devices for prolonged time could not guarantee in providing risk free drinking water at household level. Key words: Coliform, drinking water, household filters, point of use, removal efficiency.
Highlights
Contamination of drinking water by waterborne pathogens in piped water distribution systems, at storage facilities and at point of use is the most serious human health risk, causing outbreaks of different diseases
The microbial removal efficiency of four filter devices used at household level was evaluated using water quality indicator organisms, total coliform (TC), fecal coliform (FC), heterotrophic bacteria (HPC) and fecal Streptococcus (FS) (Figures 2 to 5)
The results revealed that membrane and membrane with activated carbon filter devices showed good total coliform removal efficiency of 51.4 and 58.2% on the first day
Summary
Contamination of drinking water by waterborne pathogens in piped water distribution systems, at storage facilities and at point of use is the most serious human health risk, causing outbreaks of different diseases. In Ethiopia, 56% of the urban population had access to piped water through centralized water treatment and piped distribution networks but majority of the rural population used untreated water from surface water sources (Usman et al, 2016). Quality of drinking water gets poorer in water distribution systems due to leakage through corrosion of pipes, intrusion of microbial contaminants and other physicochemical pollutants that causes diarrheal and other diseases (Dawit, 2015; Adane et al, 2017). To avoid the risk of poor-quality water consumption, different point of use water treatment and filtration technologies with variable microbial and other contaminant removal effectiveness have been developed and introduced to users.
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