This research focuses on characterizing the dissolved organic matter found at water treatment plants with closed systems. Recycled water generated as a by-product of water treatment is added to raw water in those systems. The dissolved organic matter in the raw water was found to be higher in summer than in winter, but the water treatment process was able to produce purified water of the similar quality in both seasons. The recycled water contained mostly low molecular weight and protein-like substances, and this composition was different from that of the raw water, which mainly contained humic-like substances. The recycled water did not influence the concentration of humic-like substances or the molecular weight distribution in the influent water.

A comprehensive study was undertaken to clarify the method of reducing trihalomethane and its precursors from river and lake water in view of drinking water purification. Sources of water were chosen among lakes and rivers in Eastern Japan and biological treatment and coagulative precipitation of the water samples were carried out prior to activated carbon adsorption. A strong relation was shown between TOC and THMFP of raw and treated samples, and the relation changed due to the extent of biological treatment. Though the chemical structure of substances which may cause trihalomethane formation is not clear, the content of ammoniacal nitrogen is responsible for the reduction of trihalomethane formation produced by the addition of chlorine. However, this does not mean that the reduction of chlorine dose can be achieved simply by the process of biological treatment.

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) needs to be characterized todetermine the ability of a water treatment unit to reduce organic matter andits relationship to the levels of chlorine required for disinfection. Weinvestigated water quality parameters, including DOM, in a waterpurification plant and distribution pipes located in central Japan. Thedissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration decreased from 0.73 mg/Lin raw water to 0.50 mg/L in purified water by conventional treatmentprocesses. The DOC of purified water decreased slightly in the pipesdownstream of the plant. The three-dimensional excitation-emission matrixfluorescence spectra showed some specific peaks for humic-like substancesand protein-like substances in all water samples, and the compositions ofDOM in purified water were close to those in raw water. However, therewas a peak of protein-like substances in purified and returned water, whichwas not observed for raw water. The fluorescence intensities of humic-likesubstances in purified water decreased downstream of the plant, while thefluorescence intensities of protein-like substances increased in the pipes. The measured molecular weight distributions of DOM in water presentedsome specific peaks, and DOM with a smaller molecular weight was noteasily removed by water treatment processes. There were positiverelationships between decreases in the intensities of some peaks andresidual chlorine decay.