Removal of dichloroacetic acid from drinking water by using adsorptive ozonation

The Role of Catalytic Ozonation Processes on the Elimination of DBPs and Their Precursors in Drinking Water Treatment

Formation of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in drinking water treatment (DWT) as a result of pathogen removal has always been an issue of special attention in the preparation of safe water. DBPs are formed by the action of oxidant-disinfectant chemicals, mainly chlorine derivatives (chlorine, hypochlorous acid, chloramines, etc.), that react with natural organic matter (NOM), mainly humic substances. DBPs are usually refractory to oxidation, mainly due to the presence of halogen compounds so that advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are a recommended option to deal with their removal. In this work, the application of catalytic ozonation processes (with and without the simultaneous presence of radiation), moderately recent AOPs, for the removal of humic substances (NOM), also called DBPs precursors, and DBPs themselves is reviewed. First, a short history about the use of disinfectants in DWT, DBPs formation discovery and alternative oxidants used is presented. Then, sections are dedicated to conventional AOPs applied to remove DBPs and their precursors to finalize with the description of principal research achievements found in the literature about application of catalytic ozonation processes. In this sense, aspects such as operating conditions, reactors used, radiation sources applied in their case, kinetics and mechanisms are reviewed.

Adsorption equilibrium, kinetics and thermodynamics of dichloroacetic acid from aqueous solution using mesoporous carbon

The presence of disinfection by-products, such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids in water, is believed to be harmful to human health. In this work, mesoporous carbon was synthesized with the evaporation-induced self-assembly method and employed to evaluate the effects of initial concentration, contact time, pH and temperature on the removal of dichloroacetic acid in batch experiments. Adsorption equilibrium was established in 480 min and the maximum adsorption (350mg/g) of dichloroacetic acid on the mesoporous carbon was observed to occur at 308 K and pH 3.0. Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms were used to analyse the equilibrium data at different temperatures; kinetic data were fitted to the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models and found that the adsorption capacity, mass transfer coefficient and diffusivity of dichloroacetic acid were directly affected by the physical and chemical parameters. In addition, the various thermodynamic parameters, such as Gibbs free energy (Delta G), enthalpy (Delta H = 54.35 kJmol-1) and entropy (Delta S = 258.36 Jmol-1 K-1) were calculated to analyse the adsorption process. The experimental results indicated that the mesoporous carbon was an excellent adsorbent for dichloroacetic acid removal from aqueous solutions.