Taste and odor episodes in drinking water represent one third of consumer complaints recorded by Water Utilities such as Suez. At the beginning of the nineteen eighties, the diagnosis ability of water laboratories was practically null. Research in this area started at CIRSEE by partnering with Prof. Mel Suffet who first helped implement a sensory method, Flavor Profile Analysis (FPA), and a sensitive analytical technique, Closed-Loop-Stripping Analysis. This immediately allowed us to detect the earthy-musty odorants geosmin and MIB below their odor thresholds. This was quickly followed by the discovery of iodinated THMs causing medicinal odors in chlorinated waters and the finding that fruity-orange odors in ozonated waters were caused by aliphatic aldehydes. FPA also allowed to classify tastes and odors encountered in France and the USA into a drinking water taste-and-odor wheel initially published in 1987 and upgraded in 1999. Building on these initial results, CIRSEE implemented a vast array of analytical techniques that allowed easy determination of halogenated phenols, the first report of 2,4,6-tribromoanisole, a musty odorant with the lowest known odor threshold, and the identification of various man-made contaminants such as dioxanes-dioxolanes (olive oil odor), ethyltertiarybutyl ether (ether odor), of leaching plastic additives…After three decades of research, 70-80% of the episodes submitted to CIRSEE can be correctly diagnosed. During this period, the criteria set by Prof. Suffet to confirm an identified chemical as the cause of a drinking water odor were always followed.

Three decades of research at CIRSEE Suez on taste and odor in drinking water, under the umbrella of Prof. I.H. Mel Suffet

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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