Revisiting the effect of boiling on halogenated disinfection byproducts, total organic halogen, and cytotoxicity in simulated tap water

Abstract

Boiling is a widely adopted household tap water treatment method because of its ability to inactivate chlorine-resistant pathogenic bacteria, and to reduce certain groups of disinfection byproducts (DBPs). From a more comprehensive point of view, this study revisited the effect of boiling on four groups of 17 aliphatic DBPs and six groups of 44 aromatic DBPs in both simulated chlorinated and chloraminated tap water samples, with a special focus on the changes of total organic halogen (TOX) and cytotoxicity. Results showed that the concentrations of aliphatic DBPs substantially decreased during boiling via volatilization (trihalomethanes and chloral hydrate) and hydrolysis (haloacetamides) in chlorinated and chloraminated tap water samples. The concentrations of aromatic DBPs during boiling generally followed an increasing trend due to decarboxylation of polycarboxylic precursors in chlorinated tap water samples, and showed a first increasing and then decreasing trend in chloraminated tap water samples. A sharp decreasing of TOX occurred in the heating process of tap water samples from room temperature to 100 °C, and a relatively gentle decreasing was kept in the prolonged boiling process till 5 min. The most abundant DBP group in the tap water samples without boiling was trihalomethanes, and was replaced by haloacetic acids with boiling for 5 min. Continuous boiling for 5 min substantially reduced the cytotoxicity of chlorinated and chloraminated water samples by 52.6% and 21.3%, respectively. Reduction of cytotoxicity matched well with the reduction of TOCl (r = 0.907, P < 0.01), TOBr (r = 0.885, P < 0.01) and TOX (r = 0.905, P < 0.01), suggesting that the cytotoxicity reduction during boiling was mainly ascribed to the reduction of halogenated DBPs. Therefore, boiling of tap water to 100 °C was strongly recommended to reduce the potential health risks induced by tap water ingestion.