Incidence of Adsorption Process on the Reduction of Trihalomethanes Precursory in Algerian Surface Water

Abstract

The objective of our work is to test the performance of activated carbon on the elimination of humic substances by adsorption before chlorination in order to reduce the trihalomethane precursor of humic substances for two types of surface waters of Biskra region (South East of Algeria). During the chlorination, the results showed that the potential of consumption chlorine is very high for raw surface water tested and accompanied by a rather significant quantity of the trihalomethanes. The adsorption of humic substances on powder activated carbon showed that the activated carbon whatever its form effectively removes humic substances and the yield could reach 98%. For coupling adsorption / chlorination, the results showed that adsorption induced a significant and even a remarkable reduction in both of potential of chlorine consumption and the training potential of organochlorine compounds especially trihalomethanes.