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Influence of soluble microbial products (SMP) on wastewater disinfection byproducts: trihalomethanes and haloacetic acid species from the chlorination of SMP

Environmental Science and Pollution Research volume 18, pages 46–50 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

Introduction

Effluent organic matter from biological wastewater treatment plants is composed of degradation products and soluble microbial products (SMP). Protein, polysaccharide, humic acid, and DNA were major biomolecules of SMP. Little is known about the effects of SMP as microbially derived precursors on disinfection byproduct formation and speciation in biologically treated wastewater. In addition, there has never been any attempt to directly chlorinate the major biomolecules of SMP.

Materials and methods

In this study, model compounds (bovine serum albumin, starch, DNA, and humic acid) and SMP collected from a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) were chlorinated to verify the trihalomethane and haloacetic acid species that were produced from them.

Results and discussion

The results showed that chloroform, dichlorobromomethane, dichloroacetic acid, and trichloroacetic acid were generated from the chlorination of SMP in the SBR, and there was a close relationship between the species predicted from the model chemical compounds and those obtained from the SMP.

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Acknowledgment

The authors thank China High-tech Research and Development (863) Plan (no. 2008AA062501), Doctor Program of China Education Ministry (no. 20090071110005), and The Foundation of the State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resources Reuse (no. PCRRF09003) for the financial support of this study. The authors appreciate Prof. Juliana A. Ramsay in Department of Chemical Engineering, Queen’s University, Canada, for her great help with this manuscript writing and revising.

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  1. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Yuan-yuan Wei, Yan Liu, Yun Zhang, Rui-hua Dai, Xiang Liu, Jin-jian Wu & Qiang Zhang

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  1. Yuan-yuan Wei
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  2. Yan Liu
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  3. Yun Zhang
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  4. Rui-hua Dai
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Correspondence to Yan Liu.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Wei, Yy., Liu, Y., Zhang, Y. et al. Influence of soluble microbial products (SMP) on wastewater disinfection byproducts: trihalomethanes and haloacetic acid species from the chlorination of SMP. Environ Sci Pollut Res 18, 46–50 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-010-0356-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-010-0356-5

Keywords

  • Chlorination
  • SMP
  • Model biochemical composition
  • THM and HAA species