Trends on Natural Organic Matter in Drinking Water Sources and its Treatment

Abstract

Abstract. Natural organic matter (NOM) can be defined as a mixture of complex organic compounds that universally present in natural waters. High NOM content in water strongly impact the water quality and treatment in several ways (e.g. causing colour and odour, filter fouling and increase coagulant dose). Besides that, NOM also acts as the main precursor to disinfectant by products (DBPs) produce from the reaction of NOM and disinfectant during water treatment. DBPs are known to be carcinogenic to human and animals. The formation of DBPs is depending on NOM characteristics. Generally, NOM characteristics are differ according to the water sources. In order to understand NOM properties, NOM fractionation is required and therefore different approaches have been proposed for its characterization. Meanwhile several methods of treatment have been developed to remove or reduce the amount of NOM in drinking water sources to prevent DBPs formation. The aim of this paper is to review and discuss the properties and available treatment techniques for NOM.

Investigating the fate of natural organic matter at a drinking water treatment plant in South Africa using optical spectroscopy and chemometric analysis

“…3a). These results are in agreement with previous reports that surface water NOM consists of about 50% of HPO while the hydrophilic fraction contribution ranges from 25-40%, and the transphilic fraction occupies the remainder (Universiti et al, 2016). The WTP reduced the hydrophobic fraction from 45% content in raw water to 36% in final water.…”

“…Fluorescence spectroscopy is a robust tool for characterizing fluorescent dissolved organic matter (FDOM) in various natural and engineered aquatic systems (Baghoth et al, 2010;Sanchez et al, 2013;Tijani et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2015). Owing to simplicity in application, FEEM spectroscopy has promise in predicting the removal of NOM during both conventional and advanced drinking water treatment processes (Kastl et al, 2016;Wang and Benjamin, 2016;Li and Hur, 2017).…”

Effectiveness of Trihalomethane (THM) Precursors Removal in Groundwater Using Coagulant-Disinfectant

“…It can be concluded that the application of Fe2(SO4)3 is more economical due to higher removal of turbidity at lower dosage, however higher turbidity removal can be expected with higher dosage of FeCl3. According to a study by Ibrahim and Aziz [14], overdosing the coagulant results in a substantial increase in the amount of generated sludge and a decrease in pH. This might explain the decreases in removal after 80 mg/L for all cases when applying Fe2(SO4)3 as coagulant.…”

“…The groundwater site was selected with prior knowledge from Akbar [14] that it contained higher NOM compared to usual groundwater. This was to allow the maximum THM formation potential that might happen in the presence of elevated NOM levels in source water.…”

“…The depth of the borehole is 43.575 m with a diameter of 0.2 m. It is located just 1 km away from the Kerian River. It was reported previously in a study by Akbar that this groundwater had elevated organic matter content that might be due to surface water intrusion [14]. Before sampling, the groundwater was purged for two hours to make sure the readings for water quality was stabilised.…”