For many decades, chlorine has been widely used to control microbial contaminants in drinking water to protect public health. However, chlorine reacts with water constituents such as natural organic matter, bromide and iodide, to produce disinfection byproducts (DBPs). DBPs are associated with a variety of human health effects including cancer. Drinking water supplies may also contain emerging contaminants such as nanoparticles (NPs). NPs have at least one dimension that is between 1 – 100 nm in size. Engineered NPs are produced for a wide variety of applications including industrial, biomedical, and consumer products, and there are currently more than 1,800 commercial products containing NPs on the market. A recent analysis estimated that global water sources receive up to 15,600 metric tons/yr (mt/yr) of TiO2 engineered nanomaterials (ENMs), and 3,700 mt/yr of ZnO ENMs (J. Nanopart Res. 2013, 15:1692). NPs have a high surface-to-mass ratio, which results in increased surface reactivity and potentially strong catalytic activity. Little is known about the impact of NPs on DBP formation, particularly in the presence of light. This presentation will examine the formation of DBPs in synthetic freshwater samples following addition of TiO2 or ZnO NPs, exposure to UV light, and disinfection. The concentrations of two important categories of DBPs, trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, will be assessed.

Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles: Disinfection byproduct formation in synthetic freshwater

253rd National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.