Toxic algal blooms are becoming more widespread in freshwater lakes and rivers across the United States. For example, in summer 2014 toxic microcystins entered the water treatment plant that supplied Toledo with drinking water from Lake Erie. The massive algal bloom of the cyanobacteria <i>Microcystis aeruginosa </i>caused this contamination that led to the advisory to not drink portable water for several days. Since that time, enhanced chlorination in conjunction with activated carbon treatment were implemented during harmful algal blooms (HABs), but a systematic evaluation of metabolites and formed disinfection by-products (DBPs) is still lacking. In this study, we performed chlorination of the commercially available microcystin-LR and analyzed the formed metabolites and DBPs using non-targeted ultrahigh resolution 12 Tesla Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry. Results indicated the efficient breakdown of the microcystin, but also the formation of DBPs and other metabolites. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first FT-ICR-MS study of metabolites and DBPs formed from algal toxins and has potentially important implications in drinking water treatment.

Effect of chlorination on the algal toxin microcystin: A non-targeted screening for disinfection by-products

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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