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Reduction of N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in Aqueous Solution by Nanoscale Fe/Al2(SO4)3

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Abstract

N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) is recently defined as one of nitrogenous disinfection by-products with high carcinogenicity and can be frequently detected in finished water. The decomposition of NDMA in water using nanoscale zero-valent iron (NZVI) in the presence of aluminum and iron salts was investigated in this paper. The results showed that some salts can enhance the removal of NDMA by commercial NZVI in the order of Al2(SO4)3 >> AlCl3 > FeSO4 > Na2SO4 ≈ NZVI alone, and the highest NDMA removal was 87.3 % in the presence of Al2(SO4)3. NDMA removal varied with the addition of Al2(SO4)3, NZVI dosage, initial NDMA concentration, solution pH, and temperature. The reduction of NDMA increased with the dosage of Al2(SO4)3 and NZVI, which follows a pseudo-first-order kinetics model. The removal of NDMA by NZVI was higher in acidic pHs than in alkaline ones, and the highest removal was found at pH 5. Higher reaction temperature can improve the removal of NDMA and reduce the reaction time. Based on the total nitrogen balance, most nitrogen of NDMA was converted to ammonium and dimethylamine.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 51078280, 51278352), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the National Major Science and Technology Project of China (nos. 2012ZX07404004, 2012ZX07408001), State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse Foundation (no. PCRRY11006), and National Science Council in Taiwan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, Key Laboratory of Yangtze Water Environment, Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, People’s Republic of China

    Lin Lin, Bin Xu, Lie Yan, Kai-Yuan Shen, Sheng-Ji Xia & Rong Rong

  2. Department of Safety, Health and Environmental Engineering, National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung, 811, Taiwan

    Yi-Li Lin

  3. College of Energy and Environment Engineering, Shanghai University of Electric Power, Shanghai, 200090, People’s Republic of China

    Chen-Yan Hu

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  1. Lin Lin
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  4. Lie Yan
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Correspondence to Bin Xu or Yi-Li Lin.

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Lin, L., Xu, B., Lin, YL. et al. Reduction of N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in Aqueous Solution by Nanoscale Fe/Al2(SO4)3 . Water Air Soil Pollut 224, 1632 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-013-1632-z

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