Adsorption of MS2 bacteriophage on ultrafiltration membrane laboratory equipments

Virus adsorption has been quantified (i) on different materials including various containers made of glass, plastic or stainless steel and hollow fiber membranes made of polyethersulfone, polysulfone, PVDF or cellulose acetate (with two configurations: in/out and out/in and various molecular weight cut-offs); and (ii) on the filtration equipment. The selected virus is MS2 bacteriophage used as a model to estimate viral survival in water or to quantify virus elimination by membrane filtration. A series of experiments have been conducted with suspensions of MS2 at different concentrations prepared in a sterilized saline solution (8 g/L of KCl) or in sterilized distilled water. This study has shown that the most appropriate material to be used as a filtration test tank is Pyrex glass. We show that an addition of a virus solution 15 min after the beginning of the experiment allows keeping the virus concentration at a high level in the system (including tank, tubing, and pump). No adsorption was observed on membrane materials tested during soaking.