Role of ammonia on haloacetonitriles and halonitromethanes formation during Ultraviolet irradiation followed by chlorination/chloramination

Combination of ultraviolet (UV) disinfection and chlorination became a common multi-barrier approach taken by water utilities against microbial pathogens in drinking water disinfection. Halogenated disinfection byproducts (DBPs) have been monitored and regulated in drinking water under various jurisdictions around the world for decades. More recently, several nitrogenous DBPs (N-DBPs), like haloacetonitriles (HANs) and halonitromethanes (HNMs), have been identified in chlorinated drinking waters, whose precursors are N-containing organic compounds of various origins and structures. Rising concerns over the N-DBPs formation due to their more potent genotoxic and cytotoxic activity than the regulated carbonaceous-DBPs have prompted extensive research on drinking water disinfection processes. To examine the effect of ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) on N-DBPs formation during UV disinfection of drinking water followed by chlorination/chloramination, as a first attempt, synthetic waters prepared by humic acid with different NH3-N concentrations were exposed to UV dose up to 300 mJ/cm2 from either low pressure (LP) or medium pressure (MP) lamps, followed by chlorination/chloramination. To investigate trends, the study employed synthetic waters with elevated precursor concentrations and disinfectant exposures to generate significant byproduct formation possible. LP UV treatment had no obvious effect on N-DBP formation, whereas MP UV irradiation produced more dichloroacetonitrile (DCAN). The existence of ammonia (≤1 mg/L-N) increased DCAN concentration in high organics synthetic waters under varying MP UV doses, respectively. In high organics synthetic water samples exposed to a MP UV dose of 300 mJ/cm2 DCAN reached a maximum yield of 13.7 μg/L in the presence of 0.5 mg/L NH3-N, whereas lower yields were observed at NH3-N ≥ 2 mg/L, i.e. 2.9 μg /L and 1.8 μg/L at 2 and 10 mg/L NH3-N, respectively.