Comparing three Australian natural organic matter isolates to the Suwannee river standard: Reactivity, disinfection by-product yield, and removal by drinking water treatments

Water treatments that provide efficient removal of organic and inorganic disinfection by-product (DBP) precursors across variable natural organic matter (NOM) sources are desirable. Treatments that effectively remove inorganic DBP precursors such as bromide, which significantly shift the speciation of DBP formation towards more toxic DBPs, are of particular interest and have been less investigated. This study characterised NOM isolated from three major drinking water sources in Southeast Queensland (SEQ), Australia, and compared it to the International Humic Substances Society (IHSS) Suwannee River NOM isolate (SR) in terms of DBP precursor removal treatments and DBP formation. Each NOM isolate was used to make synthetic water samples with otherwise identical water quality parameters, that were treated with enhanced coagulation (EC) or EC followed by; anion exchange (MIEX® resin), powdered activated carbon (PAC), granular activated carbon (GAC) or silver impregnated activated carbon (SIAC), to investigate the removal of DBP precursors (bromide and DOC), minimisation of DBPs, as well as the change in specific chlorine demand. EC/SIAC treatment was the most effective method of DBP control studied, due to the efficient simultaneous NOM and bromide adsorption of the SIAC (99 ± 1% bromide removal regardless of NOM source). This treatment also resulted in >92% removal of each of the measured DBPs across all NOM sources, with the exception of DBAN and 1,1-DCP, which achieved >80% removal across all NOM sources. Increases in tribromomethane (TBM) and dibromoacetonitrile (DBAN) formation were observed after all other treatment/NOM-isolate combinations, due to increased Br:DOC ratio after treatment, whereas chlorinated DBPs were generally well-controlled by all treatment/NOM-isolate combinations. Differences in reactivity of the individual NOM isolates were found to be related to both the origin of the isolate and the treatment employed, however, bromide removal capacity for each treatment was independent of NOM source.