Determination of TOCl, TOBr and TOI in drinking water by pyrolysis and off-line ion chromatography

The objective of this research was to determine the optimum total organic halogen (TOX) protocol for use with ion chromatographic (IC) detection to analyze total organic chlorine (TOCl), bromine (TOBr), and iodine (TOI) in drinking water simultaneously. Two commercial analyzers (one using a pure O-2 carrier and one using O-2/CO2 mixture) and three commercially available activated carbons (two coconut-based and one bituminous coal-based) were examined in this study. Results showed that the pyrolytic analyzer using pure O-2 and off-line IC combined with a standard TOX carbon (coconut-based) achieved the most complete recovery of TOCl, TOBr and TOI for both model compounds and real samples. There was no obvious difference between the two analyzers when used in microcoulometric detection mode. The TOX method is moderately sensitive to nitrate rinse volume. The monohaloacetic acids were partly washed out during sample preparation. This problem was solved by a modified nitrate rinsing solution.