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Occurrence and removal of dissolved organic nitrogen in US water treatment plants
Author(s) -
Lee Wontae,
Westerhoff Paul,
EsparzaSoto Mario
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal ‐ american water works association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.466
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1551-8833
pISSN - 0003-150X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1551-8833.2006.tb07782.x
Subject(s) - dissolved organic carbon , raw water , nitrogen , environmental chemistry , chemistry , water treatment , total organic carbon , environmental science , environmental engineering , organic chemistry
Two seasonal sampling campaigns of raw and finished waters from 28 water treatment plants were conducted to investigate the occurrence and removal of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON). A new dialysis pretreatment technique was applied for accurate DON determination. The average DON concentration was 0.186 mg/L nitrogen (N) in raw waters and 0.148 mg/L N in finished waters. On average, total dissolved nitrogen in the raw waters consist of 10% DON and 90% dissolved inorganic nitrogen. The dissolved organic carbon (DOC)‐to‐DON ratio of raw waters averaged 18 mg DOC to 1 mg DON. DON removal during water treatment closely mirrored that of DOC removal. The molecular weight distribution of DON roughly parallels that of DOC, and higher‐molecular‐weight fractions (> 10,000 D) of both DON and DOC were preferentially removed across the full‐scale water treatment plants.