Comparison of Reaction Rates and Relative Efficiencies for Various Dechlorination Chemicals
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 139, Issue 4
Abstract
Dechlorination of chlorinated water and wastewater is most often achieved by chemical reduction through the addition of sulfur-IV compounds before discharge into the aquatic receiving environment or upon entry in the distribution system. However, reasonable doubts subsist about the efficiency of sulfur-IV compounds as dechlorination mediators for the reduction of chlorine and organic chloramines. As a consequence, alternative treatments have been investigated over the past few years but little information remains available on the kinetics of dechlorination at different dosages. In this study, the kinetics of dechlorination promoted by five selected dechlorination agents were observed at different stoichiometric ratios (, , and ), and ANOVA was applied to the results in order to assess their statistical significance. Hydrogen peroxide (HP) was shown to promote faster than expected dechlorination; ascorbic acid and calcium thiosulfate also presented viable alternatives to treatment by sulfur-IV compounds represented by sodium sulfite and bisulfite in this study. This study challenges the common perception that HP dechlorination is slow and provides a comparative analysis for dechlorination kinetics using regression analysis, half-life values, and rate constants.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Niagara Region Public Works Department, Ontario, Canada, for supporting this project. The authors also sincerely appreciate the work and data collection conducted by B. N. Weerasinghe and N. P. DeSouza as part of their graduate and undergraduate research projects, respectively, related to portions of the dechlorination experiments.
References
Al'terman, N. A. (1958). “Dose of thiosulfate needed in dechlorination of water.” Gigiena I Sanitaria, 23, 66–67.
American Water Works Association. (2008). “Disinfection Systems Committee report.” Am. Water Works. Assn. J., 100(10), 76–91.
Batterman, S., Zhang, L., and Wang, S. (2000). “Quenching of chlorination disinfection by-product formation in drinking water by hydrogen peroxide.” Water Res., 34(5), 1652–1658.
Bedner, M., MacCrehan, W. A., and Helz, G. R. (2004). “Making chlorine greener: Investigation of alternatives to sulfite for dechlorination.” Water Res., 38(10), 2505–2514.
Castagna, R., et al. (2008). “Hydroxyl radical from the reaction between hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide.” Atmos. Environ., 42(26), 6551–6554.
Dotson, A., Keen, V. S., Metz, D., and Linden, K. (2010). “ treatment of drinking water increases post-chlorination DBP formation.” Water Res., 44(12), 3703–3713.
Edgar, W. W., Scibelli, M. A., Reimers, R. S., and Calmer, J. C. (1994). “1994 survey of effluent disinfection practices.” Proc., Water Environment Federation ’94, Portland Press, Chicago IL, 435–441.
Ekkad, N., and Huber, C. (1996). “A coulometer for determination of residual sulfite following the dechlorination of water.” Anal. Chim. Acta, 332(2–3), 155–160.
Fogelman, K. D., Walker, D. M., and Margerum, D. W. (1989). “Non-metal redox kinetics: Hypochlorite and hypochlorous acid reactions with sulfite.” Inorg. Chem., 28(6), 986–993.
Folkes, L. K., Candeias, L. P., and Wardman, P. (1995). “Kinetics and mechanisms of hypochlorous acid reactions.” Arch. Biochem. Biophys., 323(1), 120–126.
Ganesh, R., Wang, L., Lawrence, Y. C., Tikkanan, M. W., and Peterka, G. J. (2006). “Dechlorination.” Handbook of environmental engineering: Advanced physicochemical treatment processes, Vol. 4, The Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, 441–442.
Halperin, J., and Taube, H. (1952). “The transfer of oxygen atoms in oxidation-reduction reactions: III the reaction of halogenates with sulfite in aqueous solution.” J. Am. Chem. Soc., 74(2), 375–380.
Helz, G. R., and Nweke, A. C. (1995). “Incompleteness of wastewater dechlorination.” Environ. Sci. Toxicol., 29(4), 1018–1022.
Jensen, J. S., and Helz, G. R. (1998). “Rates of reduction of N-chlorinated peptides by sulfite: Relevance to incomplete dechlorination of wastewaters.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 32(4), 516–522.
Kim, Y. H., and Hensley, R. (1997). “Effective control of chlorination and dechlorination at wastewater treatment plants using redox potential.” Water Environ. Res., 69(5), 1008–1014.
LeChevallier, M. W. (1998). “Benefits of employing a disinfectant residual in distribution systems.” Water Supply, 16(3–4), 61–73.
MacCrehan, W. A., Bedner, M., and Helz, G. R. (2005). “Making chlorine greener: Performance of alternative dechlorination agents in wastewater.” Chemosphere, 60(3), 381–388.
MacCrehan, W. A., Jensen, J. S., and Helz, G. R. (1998). “Detection of sewage organic chlorination products that are resistant to dechlorination with sulfite.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 32(22), 3640–3645.
Mattice, J. S., and Tsai, S. C. (1984). “Total residual chlorine as a regulatory tool.” Water chlorination: Environmental impact and health effects, Vol. 4, Ann Arbor Science Publishers, Ann Arbor, MI, 901–912.
Shams El Din, A. M., and Mohammed, R. A. (1998). “Kinetics of the reaction between hydrogen peroxide and hypochlorite.” Desalination, 115(2), 145–153.
Stefan, H. G., Johnson, T. R., McConnell, H. L., Anderson, C. L., and Martenson, D. R. (1990). “Hydraulic modeling of mixing in wastewater dechlorination basin.” J. Environ. Eng., 116(3), 524–541.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA). (1985). “Ambient water quality criteria for chlorine—1984.”, 〈http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/standards/upload/2001_10_12_criteria_ambientwqc_chlorine1984.pdf〉.
Weerasinghe, B. N. (2008). “Kinetics of tap water dechlorination and aquatic health impacts of selected dechlorination chemicals.” M.A. Sc. thesis, Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Environmental Engineering, Carleton Univ., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Yiin, B. S., Walker, D. M., and Margerum, D. W. (1987). “Non-metal redox kinetics: General-acid-assisted reactions of chloramine with sulfite and hydrogen sulfite.” Inorg. Chem., 26(21), 3435–3441.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 139 • Issue 4 • April 2013
Pages: 522 - 529
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 5, 2010
Accepted: Feb 2, 2012
Published online: Mar 15, 2013
Published in print: Apr 1, 2013
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.