Toxicity evaluation of synthetic waters based on Br-Cl-I-THMs formation during the chlorine/ammonia process

Monochloramine (NH2Cl) is commonly used as an alternative to chlorine for disinfection because it is less reactive with the organic matrix, therefore forms less regulated DBPs and leads to a more stable residual. However, emerging DBPs such as I-DBPs which are more cytotoxic and genotoxic than the c...

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Main Authors: Allard, Sebastian, Tan, J., Charrois, Jeffrey, Joll, C., Heitz, A., Von Gunten, Urs
Format: Conference Paper
Published: AMER CHEMICAL SOC 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/24574
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author Allard, Sebastian
Tan, J.
Charrois, Jeffrey
Joll, C.
Heitz, A.
Von Gunten, Urs
author_facet Allard, Sebastian
Tan, J.
Charrois, Jeffrey
Joll, C.
Heitz, A.
Von Gunten, Urs
author_sort Allard, Sebastian
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Monochloramine (NH2Cl) is commonly used as an alternative to chlorine for disinfection because it is less reactive with the organic matrix, therefore forms less regulated DBPs and leads to a more stable residual. However, emerging DBPs such as I-DBPs which are more cytotoxic and genotoxic than the corresponding regulated Cl-Br-DBPs may be produced during chloramination. To mitigate the formation of I-DBPs, a common option is the application of the chlorine/ammonia process. The water is allowed to be in contact with chlorine to oxidise iodide to iodate, therefore mitigating the formation of I-DBPs. Then ammonia is added to form NH2Cl to control the formation of regulated DBPs. To better understand the mechanisms involved in the mitigation of I-DBPs during the chlorine/ammonia process, synthetic waters spiked with iodide and bromide at typical drinking water concentrations and different DOM extracts from the IHSS were subject to 3 disinfection scenarios: NH2Cl alone, pre-chlorination at different contact times followed by ammonia addition and HOCl alone. A theoretical toxicity evaluation was carried out based on the THMs formation and their relative toxicity equivalents to discriminate the 3 disinfection strategies studied. Results showed that the pre-chlorination time, the bromide concentration and the type and concentration of DOM are important parameters that control the formation of I-THMs and iodate. Regarding the cytotoxicity, the chlorine/ammonia process is not always favourable. For highly reactive DOM, the decrease in toxicity induced by the conversion of iodide to iodate during chlorination was compensated by the toxicity of regulated THMs.Conversely, for DOM with lower reactivity, the application of chlorine clearly reduced the formation of I-THMs while the toxicity of regulated THMs remained relatively low. In this case, because of the I-THMs mitigation, the application of chlorine led to a lower relative toxicity (based on THMs), as compared to the application of NH2Cl.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-245742018-12-14T00:52:18Z Toxicity evaluation of synthetic waters based on Br-Cl-I-THMs formation during the chlorine/ammonia process Allard, Sebastian Tan, J. Charrois, Jeffrey Joll, C. Heitz, A. Von Gunten, Urs Monochloramine (NH2Cl) is commonly used as an alternative to chlorine for disinfection because it is less reactive with the organic matrix, therefore forms less regulated DBPs and leads to a more stable residual. However, emerging DBPs such as I-DBPs which are more cytotoxic and genotoxic than the corresponding regulated Cl-Br-DBPs may be produced during chloramination. To mitigate the formation of I-DBPs, a common option is the application of the chlorine/ammonia process. The water is allowed to be in contact with chlorine to oxidise iodide to iodate, therefore mitigating the formation of I-DBPs. Then ammonia is added to form NH2Cl to control the formation of regulated DBPs. To better understand the mechanisms involved in the mitigation of I-DBPs during the chlorine/ammonia process, synthetic waters spiked with iodide and bromide at typical drinking water concentrations and different DOM extracts from the IHSS were subject to 3 disinfection scenarios: NH2Cl alone, pre-chlorination at different contact times followed by ammonia addition and HOCl alone. A theoretical toxicity evaluation was carried out based on the THMs formation and their relative toxicity equivalents to discriminate the 3 disinfection strategies studied. Results showed that the pre-chlorination time, the bromide concentration and the type and concentration of DOM are important parameters that control the formation of I-THMs and iodate. Regarding the cytotoxicity, the chlorine/ammonia process is not always favourable. For highly reactive DOM, the decrease in toxicity induced by the conversion of iodide to iodate during chlorination was compensated by the toxicity of regulated THMs.Conversely, for DOM with lower reactivity, the application of chlorine clearly reduced the formation of I-THMs while the toxicity of regulated THMs remained relatively low. In this case, because of the I-THMs mitigation, the application of chlorine led to a lower relative toxicity (based on THMs), as compared to the application of NH2Cl. 2014 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/24574 AMER CHEMICAL SOC restricted
spellingShingle Allard, Sebastian
Tan, J.
Charrois, Jeffrey
Joll, C.
Heitz, A.
Von Gunten, Urs
Toxicity evaluation of synthetic waters based on Br-Cl-I-THMs formation during the chlorine/ammonia process
title Toxicity evaluation of synthetic waters based on Br-Cl-I-THMs formation during the chlorine/ammonia process
title_full Toxicity evaluation of synthetic waters based on Br-Cl-I-THMs formation during the chlorine/ammonia process
title_fullStr Toxicity evaluation of synthetic waters based on Br-Cl-I-THMs formation during the chlorine/ammonia process
title_full_unstemmed Toxicity evaluation of synthetic waters based on Br-Cl-I-THMs formation during the chlorine/ammonia process
title_short Toxicity evaluation of synthetic waters based on Br-Cl-I-THMs formation during the chlorine/ammonia process
title_sort toxicity evaluation of synthetic waters based on br-cl-i-thms formation during the chlorine/ammonia process
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/24574