Hollow-fiber ultrafiltration of Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts from a wide variety of 10-L surface water samples.

Abstract

An optimized hollow-fiber ultrafiltration system (50 000 MWCO) was developed to concentrate Cryptosporidium oocysts from 10-L samples of environmental water. Seeded experiments were conducted using a number of surface-water samples from the southwestern U.S.A. and source water from four water districts with histories of poor oocyst recovery. Ultrafiltration produced a mean recovery of 47.9% from 19 water samples (55.3% from 39 individual tests). We also compared oocyst recoveries using the hollow-fiber ultrafiltration system with those using the Envirochek filter. In limited comparison tests, the hollow-fiber ultrafiltration system produced recoveries similar to those of the Envirochek filter (hollow fiber, 74.1% (SD = 2.8); Envirochek, 71.9% (SD = 5.2)) in low-turbidity (3.9 NTU) samples and performed better than the Envirochek filter in high-turbidity (159.0 NTU) samples (hollow fiber, 27.5%; Envirochek, 0.4%). These results indicate that hollow-fiber ultrafiltration can efficiently recover oocysts from a wide variety of surface waters and may be a cost-effective alternative for concentrating Cryptosporidium from water, given the reusable nature of the filter.