Poliovirus adsorption to narrow particle size fractions of sand and montmorillonite clay

Abstract

Poliovirus adsorption from 0.15 M, pH 7.3 phosphate-buffered saline solution to sand and sodium montmorillonite clay particles has been measured for conditions in which both virus and adsorbent particles are monodisperse. Sand and clay particles had narrow size distributions about their mean particle sizes of 123 and 1–2 μm, respectively. Adsorption to sand was carried out to high-equilibrium solution-phase virus concentration (10 9 PFU/ml) and showed saturation-limited behavior, but low fractional coverage of sand particle surface ( f ∼ 0.01). This behavior is similar to that of protein adsorption to inorganic surfaces observed by others. Adsorption to clay could be made only to virus equilibrium concentrations of about 6 × 10 5 PFU/ml because the clay particles aggregated at higher virus concentrations. Below this concentration, adsorption to clay was found to fit an isotherm function for which amount adsorbed per mass of clay depends on equilibrium solution-phase concentration to the 1.3 power.