The Malaysian Journal of Analytical Sciences Vol 12 No 3 (2008): 528 - 535

 

 

CHLORINATION AND CHLORAMINES FORMATION

 

Lim Fang Yee¹, Md. Pauzi Abdullah¹*, Sadia Ata¹, Abass Abdullah², Basar Ishak²  and Khairul Nidzham²

 

¹School of Chemical Sciences and Food Technology,

University Kebangsaan Malaysia,

43600 Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan.

²Semenyih River Water Treatment Plant, P.O. Box 27, 43807 Dengkil.

 

*Corresponding author: mpauzi@pkrisc.cc.ukm.my

 

 

Abstract

Chlorination is the most important method of disinfection in Malaysia which aims at ensuring an  acceptable and safe drinking water quality. The dosing of chlorine to surface water containing ammonia and nitrogen compounds  may form chloramines in the treated water. During this reaction, inorganic and organic chloramines are formed. The recommended maximum  acceptable  concentration  (MAC)  for  chloramines  in  drinking   water   is  3000  µ g/L.  The  production  of monochloramine, dichloramine and trichloramine is highly dependent upon pH, contact time and the chlorine to ammonia molar ratio. The purpose of this study is to examine the formation of chloramines that occur upon the chlorination during the treatment process. Chloramines were determined using the N,N-diethyl-p-phenylenediamine (DPD) colorimetric method. The influences of ammonia, pH and chlorine dosage on the chloramines formation were also studied. This paper presents a modeling  approach  based  on  regression  analysis  which  is  designed  to  estimate  the  formation  of  chloramines.  The correlation between the concentration of chloramines and the ammonia, pH and chlorine dosage was examined. In all cases, the quantity of chloramines formed depended linearly upon the amount of chlorine dosage. On the basis of this study it reveals that the concentration of chloramines is a function of chlorine dosage and the ammonia  concentration to the chlorination process. pH seems to not significantly affect the formation of chloramines.

 

Keywords: Chlorination, chloramines, ammonia, chlorine dosage

 

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