{"id":1199,"date":"2019-08-01T01:40:56","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T01:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/legionella-growth-potential-of-drinking-water-produced-by-a-reverse-osmosis-pilot-plant\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T04:03:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:03:01","slug":"legionella-growth-potential-of-drinking-water-produced-by-a-reverse-osmosis-pilot-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/legionella-growth-potential-of-drinking-water-produced-by-a-reverse-osmosis-pilot-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Legionella growth potential of drinking water produced by a reverse osmosis pilot plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

a<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/a>b<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/a>b<\/sup><\/span>c<\/sup><\/span>d<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/a>e<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

reverse osmosis<\/a> (RO), helps us get drinking water<\/a> that stays clean and stable for longer. What we didn’t know much about was how RO water affects biofilms<\/a> and the growth of L. pneumophila<\/em>, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease. So, we set out to do two things: first, figure out how much Legionella<\/em> could grow in RO water, even after we added minerals back in, and compare that to regular treated groundwater<\/a>. Second, we wanted to see if different pipe materials, when exposed to remineralized RO water, could still encourage L. pneumophila<\/em> to grow.<\/p>\n

We used a boiler<\/a> biofilm monitor (BBM) to check the water’s Legionella<\/em> growth potential. This monitor really mimics how water flows in a home plumbing system. For the materials, we used a biomass<\/a> production potential (BPP) test. We measured ATP<\/a> levels in the biofilm on glass rings from the BBMs. With RO water, those ATP levels hovered around 100 pg ATP cm-2<\/sup>. But with conventionally treated water, the ATP concentrations in the biofilm were ten times higher! Not only that, conventionally treated water had a Legionella<\/em> growth potential that was a whopping 1000 times higher than RO water, even after remineralization. When we looked at the BPP-test, glass, copper, and PVC-C showed the least biofilm and Legionella<\/em> growth. PE-Xb, PE-Xc, and PE-100 were next, and PVC-P had the most biofilm and highest Legionella<\/em> growth potential.<\/p>\n

So, what does this all mean? Our study clearly showed that remineralized RO water doesn’t make L. pneumophila<\/em> grow more in plumbing systems. However, if you’re using PE or PVC-P pipes, you might still see L. pneumophila<\/em> growth, even with high-quality RO water. It’s something to keep in mind when you’re building or updating your water systems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The post appeared first on .<\/p>\n

Source: Water Feed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Treatment processes, such as membrane filtration with\u00a0reverse osmosis\u00a0(RO), are used to produce\u00a0drinking water\u00a0with a high degree of biostability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water-filter","category-water-treatment","tag-ro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89497,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/89497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}