Aqueous chlorination of benzodiazepines diazepam and oxazepam: Kinetics, transformation products and reaction pathways

Abstract

The pharmaceutical benzodiazepine diazepam and its metabolite oxazepam have been detected in wastewater treatment plants effluents, surface water and treated drinking water, but their transformation during chlorination process is not well understood. We investigated the reactions of diazepam and oxazepam with free available chlorine using a high-resolution mass analyzer and theoretical calculation to elucidate the fate of benzodiazepines during water chlorination process. The obtained apparent second-order rate constants (kapp) for chlorine reaction with diazepam and oxazepam varied from 0.01 to 1.7 M−1 s−1 and 0.7 to 31.6 M−1 s−1 in the pH range of 5.5–10.0, respectively. Under typical wastewater disinfection conditions of neutral pH values, free chlorine concentrations of 5 mg L−1 and contact times of up to 2 h, the corresponding half-lives for diazepam (∼180 min) and oxazepam (∼61 min) suggest that diazepam will be partly transformed during disinfection. Conversely, oxazepam will be considerably transformed during wastewater disinfection. The pH-dependency of kapp for diazepam could be explained by the reactions between neutral diazepam and HClO species. The kinetic pattern for oxazepam can be well described by species-specific reactions involving oxazepam or Cl2 and Cl2O species. In total, fifteen and eight transformation products were identified for chlorination of diazepam and oxazepam, respectively. The C-3 of 1,4-benzodiazepine structure was the main site of attack, leading predominantly to the oxidation and then cleavage of the C(3)-N(4) bond, as well as diazepine ring contractions. Based on mass balance estimation, the main chlorination product for diazepam and oxazepam are 7-chloro-1-methyl-5-phenyl-1,3-dihydro-2H-1,4-benzodiazepin-2,3-dione and 6-chloro-4-phenyl-2(1H)-quinazolinone, respectively.