Potential toxic effects of chlorination and UV/chlorination in the treatment of hydrochlorothiazide in the water

Chlorination is a common disinfection method in water treatment. This method can be converted into an advanced oxidation process by incorporating UV irradiation during water treatment. This study investigated the degradation of hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) by chlorination and UV/chlorination in water. HCTZ is a diuretic medication that has been frequently detected in wastewater. For chlorination, the second-order rate constant for the reaction between HCTZ with free available chlorine was found to increase with increasing pH from 5 to 8 due to the increase of the anionic HCTZ fraction. UV/chlorination was found to be more efficient in removing HCTZ as compared with chlorination due to the presence of reactive radical species such as hydroxyl radicals. For transformation by-products, chlorination was found to produce two by-products via chlorination and hydroxylation reactions that occurred at the aromatic ring of HCTZ. For UV/chlorination, an additional by-product formed through a radical reaction at the heterocyclic moiety of HCTZ was detected. Based on the Escherichia coli inhibition study, chlorination and UV/chlorination were found to increase the toxicity of the HCTZ solution. This result indicated that even UV/chlorination showed higher effectiveness in removing HCTZ; however, it also has the potential to generate toxic by-products and effluent. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.