Influence of disinfection techniques on aliphatic disinfection byproduct formation and cytotoxicity/genotoxicity in swimming pools: A review

Abstract

Swimming pools is a significant exposure scenario of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) owning to its much higher DBPs concentration compared to drinking water. Although many reviews regarding occurrence, formation and impacts of swimming pools DBPs have been published, a comprehensive reviewer regarding the influence of disinfection techniques on DBP formation and cytotoxicity/genotoxicity in swimming pools is lacking. In this review, the occurrences of highly toxic emerging DBPs as well as their formation and cytotoxicity/genotoxicity in different disinfection techniques were analyzed. For emerging aliphatic DBPs, the average concentrations of haloaldehydes (HALs), haloamides (HAMs), haloacetonitriles (HANs), haloketones (HKs), and halonitromethane (HNMs) in global swimming pools were 255, 290, 23.8, 31.6, and 6.0 μg/L, which are about 3–5 times higher than these in global drinking water. The average formation potentials of 9 classes of aliphatic DBPs in chlorine, UV/chlorine, ozone/chlorine, copper-silver ion (CSI)/chlorine, electrochemically generated mixed oxidant (EGMO), ClO2, and trichloroisocyanuric acid (TCCA) were 645, 897, 470, 546, 1306, 85.4, and 195 μg/L, respectively. ClO2 and TCCA showed good performance on the control of organic DBPs, while they caused the formation of other DBPs e.g., chlorate, chlorite, and cyanuric acid. Combined advanced oxidation processes with emerging disinfects may be a good way to control the aliphatic DBPs in swimming pools. This is the first attempt to highlight the occurrence of emerging DBPs in swimming pools as well as their formation potential and toxicity in different disinfection techniques, which can help swimming controller to select the best disinfection technique for DBP elimination.