Access to safe drinking water is vital for survival. Untreated water from nature is often contaminated with fecal bacteria that can cause diarrheal diseases, which have high mortality rates when not treated. There are some methods utilized today for disinfecting drinking water but new method and approaches for portable onsite water purification techniques are desired to provide people in remote areas or in emergency situation with clean water.<br/><br/>Most new technologies for onsite water purification is based on the release of biocides e.g. chlorine or silver nano-particles to kill the bacteria but this method has considerable drawbacks since the released compounds are often toxic to water living organisms and can potentially select for antibiotic resistant bacteria in nature. A more sustainable alternative is to use contact-active antibacterial cellulose that removes bacteria from water up on physical contact, without releasing any chemicals. The contact-active cellulose is created by functionalizing the cellulose fiber surface with cationic polyelectrolytes through physical multilayer adsorption, according to the layer-by-layer method. The cellulose fibers gains a positive net charge and can thereby attract and bind to the negatively charged bacteria.<br/><br/>So far, over 99.9 % of bacteria in water can be removed using the functionalized cellulose with contact-active antibacterial properties. This is, to the author’s knowledge, the first attempt to purify water from bacteria using cellulose functionalized with cationic polyelectrolytes through multilayer adsorption.

Purification of water using cellulose:  A safe way to remove bacteria

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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