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CHLORINATION OF AQUATIC HUMIC SUBSTANCES
Citation:
Christman, R., J. Johnson, D. Norwood, W. Liao, AND J. Hass. CHLORINATION OF AQUATIC HUMIC SUBSTANCES. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/2-81/016.
Description:
This research program was initiated with the overall objective of increasing our understanding of the chemical structures of aquatic humic material and their behavior during chemical oxidation in particular with chlorine. Experimental methods were devised for the isolation of humic and fulvic acid fractions from natural surface waters. These methods involve the classical precipitation of humic acids from large volumes of raw water followed by concentration through settling and centrifugation. Fulvic acid materials were concentrated by adsorption on macroreticular XAD-2 resin followed by base elution. Experimental conditions were devised for the controlled oxidation of these samples with KMnO4 and with aqueous chlorine solutions followed by solvent extraction, formation of methyl esters and GC/MS analysis. The criteria for identification of degradation products employing low resolution EI, high resolution EI, and CI mass spectrometry are included in appended material. Chlorination experiments were also conducted on selected model compounds as dictated by the results of the whole sample degradation experiments.