The Need for Speed – Rapid Evolution of Microbiological Testing in Drinking Water

The Need for Speed – Rapid Evolution of Microbiological Testing in Drinking Water - Free book chapter on the microbiological testing of water

Chapter 2

The need for speed – rapid evolution of microbiological testing in drinking water

Patrick A. Whalen, Dan Kroll and Peter Gallant

1. 1. INTRODUCTION

The detection of microorganisms in water has occurred for millennia. Initially, it happened incidentally – ancient cultures observed that when waterwas boiled prior to consumption, the incidence of sickness was dramatically reduced. They did not fully understand why this occurred, but the practice has continued to this very day as a reliable method for the disinfection of water. In the 19th century, the roots of modern water microbiology were laid through the work of John Snow in the City of London. Snow’s work enabled others to conclusively link the discharge of sewage from overloaded cesspools into the Thames river to outbreaks of cholera and typhoid fever, dispelling the popular belief that these outbreaks were rooted in clouds of sickness descending upon the city, otherwise known as Miasmatic Theory (Halliday, 2001). Simultaneously, cities around the world were installing water filters to remove sediment from water sources prior to its delivery for consumption, mainly to improve esthetic qualities (primarily suspended sediment, taste and odor)but also indirectly removing at least some microbiological contaminants. At the same time, scientists including Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur were pioneering the field of microbiology via microscopes and culture tests – and thus the science of microbiological sensors was born. Into the 20th century, the widespread adoption of microbiological testing, coupled with water filtration and later chlorination, resulted in the most significant decline in mortality rates in modern history (Cutler & Miller, 2005).

Despite early rapid advances, microbiological testing methods such as plate- growth methods remained largely unchanged until the mid-20th century, when biochemical and molecular-based test methods were first developed. The reasons for these developments were many: a desire for more rapid results, greater specificity, greater objectivity and ease-of-use by non-skilled workers, and the continual search for the “holy grail” – sensors embedded on-line in the water distribution system that can detect and characterize bacteriological targets in real-time, all the time. By the early 21st century, science had entered the golden age of microbiological test method development with a multitude of different technology options for achieving one or more of the above-mentioned goals. However, scientists have still not found the “perfect” sensor technology, and it is not obvious that a single technology is emerging as the leading contender for widespread deployment in public water supply networks. Furthermore, there is a wide gap between the availabletechnology, end-user capability to deploy and manage sensor networks, and the nature of the regulatory compliance environment such that even if the perfect microbiological sensor existed, it would be a struggle to deploy rapidly across the industry.

This chapter will provide both a historical review of microbiological detection technologies as well as an overview of selected biosensor technologies for water quality monitoring, with a focus on the challenges that must be overcome to ensure the successful deployment of advanced microbiological sensor technologies in water supply networks.

© 2018 The Author(s). This is an Open Access book chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which allows users to copy and distribute, to create extracts, abstracts and new works from the Work, to alter and revise the Work, and to make commercial use of the Work, provided the user gives appropriate credit (with a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI), provides a link to the licence, and that the licensor is not represented as endorsing the use made   of the work. The full details of the licence are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.  The chapter is from the book Microbiological Sensors for the Drinking Water Industry, Torben Lund Skovhus and Bo Højris (Eds.).

doi: 10.2166/9781780408699_0015

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Taxonomy

• Microorganism
• Treatment
• Treatment Methods
• Antimicrobial
• Testing Instruments
• Microbiology
• water treatment