Hygienic Chemical Studies on Supplying Water. Decomposition of p-Hydroxycinnamic and Ferulic Acid with Hypochlorite in Water

Abstract

The present series of work was undertaken to prove that there is no possibility for the presence of either ferulic acid or p-hydroxycinnamic acid in purified city water supplied by authorized water works. Both ferulic and p-hydroxycinnamic acids consume chlorine and are rapidly decomposed. They consume about 4 moles of hypochlorite for each mole of the substance, and the reaction is completed when the residual chlorine detected in the reaction mixture becomes about 0.1 ppm or less. This test for ferulic and p-hydroxycinnamic acids was carried out because some investigators attributed the incidence of a chronic bone disease, the so-called Kaschin-Beck disease, to city water, even if supplied by qualified water works, because of the presence of p-hydroxycinnamic (p-cumaric) and 4-hydroxy-3-methoxycinnamic (ferulic) acids, which were reported to have been detected in polluted river water used as a source of city water and which were found to produce changes in the cells of artilage tissue and salivary grands in young rats.