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A composite microporous membrane made of poly(N-benzyl-4-vinylpyridinium chloride) that showed strong affinity with bacterial cells was prepared as a filter material for removing airborne bacteria. Thickness, pore diameter and porosity of the membrane were 0.72 mm, 14.5 microm and 63%, respectively. Electron micrographic analysis revealed that the membrane consisted of a very large number of connected beads of 1.4 microm in diameter made of the pyridinium-type polymer. Filtration using the membrane was performed easily at low flow rates with insignificant pressure drop across the membrane. Filtration at 63.7 cm/sec gave 99.98% and 99.996% removal (3.7 and 4.4 log10-unit reduction in concentration) of Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, respectively. Staphylococcus aureus was not detected in filtrates. Since pores of the membrane were much larger than these bacteria, the efficient removal was best explained in terms of the affinity of the polymer with bacterial cells.

Unwoven cloth coated with 32 mg/g of a copolymer of N-benzyl-4-vinyl-pyridinium chloride and styrene was found to be effective in removing micro-organisms from water. In experiments demonstrating removal of Escherichia coli by filtration through ten sheets of the unwoven cloth, the rate of removal was 99.99% at a filtration rate of 2.6 cm/h, and remained at 99% even at a high filtration rate of 300 cm/h and a low influent concentration of the bacterial cells such as 10(3) cells/ml. The rate of removal tended to increase with a decrease in the influent bacterial concentration. Seven other bacteria and two yeasts were effectively removed by filtration through the unwoven cloth. Filtration through the unwoven cloth was also effective in removing spores of fungi from water but was not very effective in removing bacteriophage T4 from aqueous solution.

Cross-linked poly(N-benzyl-4-vinylpyridinium bromide) (BVP resin) was found to be very efficient in removing pathogenic human viruses from aqueous solution. In batch removal experiments using 50 g/l of BVP resin at 35 degrees C, the level of infectivity in suspensions of enterovirus, herpes simplex virus, poliovirus, and human immunodeficiency virus was reduced 1000-100,000 fold during a 2 h period. Those of coxsackievirus and echovirus were reduced 60-600 fold during 1 h contact. The haemagglutination titres of solutions of human rotavirus, influenza virus, human adenovirus, and Japanese encephalitis virus were reduced 16-256 fold during 30 min of contact. In removal experiments by a continuous flow column method for poliovirus, enterovirus, and coxsackievirus with initial infectivities of less than 10(5)/ml, the infectivity of these viruses was no longer detectable in the effluent solution. For poliovirus, coxsackievirus, and echovirus with initial infectivities higher than 10(6), 99.8-99.9998% of the input viruses was removed as indicated by the reduction of infectivity.