INFLUENCE OF INDUSTRIAL WASTES ON THE FORMATION
OF VOLATILE HALOGENATED ORGANICS
DURING EFFLUENT CHLORINATION
Joseph V. Hunter, Professor II
Cook College
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903
Mary M. Busby, Director of Laboratory Operations
Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority
Rahway, New Jersey 07065
Hong Chang, Associate Programmer
I.M.B. Corporation
Kingston, New York 12401
INTRODUCTION
The three traditional barriers to the spread of waterborne diseases have been water disinfection,
natural "die-away" in the aquatic environment, and wastewater treatment plant effluent disinfection. Of these, water disinfection has been considered to be the most important, and the dramatic
decrease in the incident of such diseases since the inception of water disinfection has borne this out.
In the United States, both water and wastewater treatment plant effluent disinfection is usually
accomplished by chlorination. Although chlorine (or rather hypochlorite) is an effective disinfectant,
certain problems have arisen which have caused chlorination to be the subject of increasing concern.
One of the major reasons for this concern is the action of chlorine (hypochlorite) during disinfection.
As it is an active oxidizing agent, it tends to oxidize organic compounds found in the water or effluent.
This would not represent a concern if the only effect was to add oxygen to organic compounds not
completely oxidized. Unfortunately, it can also add chlorine and, as many chlorinated organics are
suspect due to their toxic and/or carcinogenic activities, the role of chlorination in their formation
has been an area of intensive research over the past decade.
Concerns involving the chlorination of wastewater have been less intense than those expressed
over the chlorination of drinking water for obvious reasons. However, as effluent chlorination is
expensive and as it is not considered by many to have obvious or immediate advantages, the release
of effluents containing chlorinated organics and residual "chlorine" has been specified as potential
environmental hazards in arguments against effluent chlorination.
In an industrialized state such as New Jersey, most large wastewater treatment plants contain
significant proportions of industrial wastes, many of which are organic in nature. The question arose
as to what influence these wastes would have on the production of halogenated organics during
effluent chlorination. The production of halogenated organics during chlorination of effluents has
been well documented by Jolley [1], Glaze and Henderson [2], and Glaze et al. [3]. The increased
complexity due to the additional industrial organics could be significant if these organics act as precursors for halogenated organics. The purpose of the research described in this paper was to determine the nature and the extent of this effect.
PROCEDURES
Sampling
Four Northern New Jersey plants were selected for study. These plants contained approximately
0%, 23%, 27% and 50% industrial wastewaters by volume. All were secondary treatment plants
631