Occurrence of nine nitrosamines and secondary amines in source water and drinking water: Potential of secondary amines as nitrosamine precursors

Occurrence and profiling of multiple nitrosamines in source water and drinking water of China

“…The concentrations of NDEA have been reported in only several countries and regions, in drinking water (3.7-12.9 ng/L) (Jurado-Sanchez et al, 2010;Planas et al, 2008) and domestic wastewater (0.132 μg/L) (Hartmetz and Slemrova, 1980). Although other nitrosamines including NMEA, NDPA, NMor, NPip, NPyr, NDBA, and N-nitrosodiphenylamine (NDPhA) have been investigated in several drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) (Wang et al, 2011) and a digestive system cancer region (Ma et al, 2012), due to the lack of a detailed national survey, information regarding the occurrence and concentration levels of multiple nitrosamines in different treatment types of DWTPs across major watersheds in China is still very limited. On the other hand, several studies have investigated the effects of different disinfection processes on nitrosamine formation.…”

Occurrence of selected aliphatic amines in source water of major cities in China

“…Considering the molar yields of N-DBPs (0.1%-29.0% for primary amines and 1%-5% for secondary amines) (Joo and Mitch, 2007;Wang et al, 2011) and current recommend levels for the corresponding DBPs (for example 10 ng/L for NDMA) (Richardson et al, 2007), a warning level of 1 μg/L was set in this study. Above the level, the amine will make a remarkable contribution to the overall pool of DBPs.…”

“…In comparison to concentrations of DMA observed in previous studies (10 ng/L-3 μg/L) (Sacher et al, 1997;Akyüz and Ata, 2006), the concentrations of DMA observed in source water samples in this study were relatively high. This may cause a remarkable risk of NDMA formation during disinfection of drinking water, because DMA has been proven as an important NDMA precursor during drinking water disinfection (Wang et al, 2011 (Joo and Mitch, 2007). Although, up to now, occurrence of N-nitrosomethylbutylamine in drinking water has not been reported, considering the similar structure of MBA to other secondary amines and occurrence of MBA in source water at a relatively high concentration, further study is needed to investigate if N-nitrosomethylbutylamine form during disinfection of MBA contaminated source water.…”

“…E-mail: yangmin@rcees.ac.cn water may react with disinfectants during drinking water treatment process to form nitrogenous disinfection byproducts (N-DBPs) including haloacetonitriles, halonitromethanes (Joo and Mitch, 2007) and N-nitrosoamines (Mitch et al, 2003;Wang et al, 2011), which are considered to be potential human carcinogen compounds. Recently, several studies have shown that dimethylamine, diethylamine, morpholine and di-n-butylamine detected in source water would be important precursors of N-nitorsodimethylamine (NDMA), N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), N-nitrosomorpholine (NMOR) and N-nitrosodin-butylamine (NDBA), respectively, in drinking water (Mitch et al, 2003;Wang et al, 2011). Thus the occurrence data of these compounds is crucial for better control of the formation of the N-DBPs and improving drinking water quality.…”

“…Pietsch et al (2001) studied the behavior of several aliphatic amines during the drinking water treatment process, and found that these compounds are difficult to be removed by conventional drinking water treatment process (i.e., coagulation, chlorination). Wang et al (2011) studied the occurrence of eight aliphatic amines in several wastewater treatment plants in China, and suggested that diethylamine, morpholine and di-n-butylamine detected in source water would be important precursor for corresponding nitrosamines.…”