Ceramic pot filters are household water treatment and safe storage (HWTS) systems designed to improve the microbial quality of drinking water. They yield high log reduction values (LRVs) for bacterial and protozoan pathogens but provide very little removal of viruses. This study investigated virus removal of ceramic filter discs (CFDs), using feed water with 3 different nutrient levels under extended continuous operation and limited cleaning frequency. The results show that filter use without cleaning resulted in biofilm growth and MS2 LRV values increased with increasing feed water nutrient content. Cleaning the filter surface by scrubbing led to a partial or total loss in improved LRVs, indicating the importance of this biological top layer to the removal of MS2. Overall, the removal capacity of a matured biofilm remained constant, regardless of its age. MS2 LRVs ranged between 0.9 ± 0.2 LRV for low nutrient (LN), 1.6 ± 0.2 LRV for medium nutrient (MN) and 2.4 ± 0.5 LRV for high nutrient (HN) biofilms. Interestingly, a change in feed conditions for the HN filters resulted in an unprecedented high LRV of >4 LRV, which supports further investigation of the mechanistic role of biofilms in virus removal.

陶瓷壶过滤器是旨在改善饮用水微生物质量的家用水处理和安全存储（HWTS）系统。对于细菌和原生动物病原体，它们可产生较高的对数减少值（LRV），但对病毒的清除却很少。这项研究调查了在延长的连续操作和有限的清洁频率下，使用具有3种不同营养水平的给水来去除陶瓷滤盘（CFD）的病毒的方法。结果表明，不清洁使用过滤器会导致生物膜生长，并且MS2 LRV值会随着给水营养成分的增加而增加。通过擦洗清洁过滤器表面导致改进的LRV的部分或全部损失，表明该生物顶层对于去除MS2的重要性。总体而言，成熟的生物膜的去除能力保持恒定，不管它的年龄。低营养素（LN）的MS2 LRV在0.9±0.2 LRV，中等营养素（MN）的1.6±0.2 LRV和高营养素（HN）生物膜的2.4±0.5 LRV之间。有趣的是，HN过滤器进料条件的改变导致前所未有的高LRV> 4 LRV，这支持了对生物膜在病毒去除中的机械作用的进一步研究。