Study of chlorination of UV-filter avobenzone in sea water by gas chromatography combined with high resolution mass spectrometry
T14N2
A.А. Chugunova, M. B. Kralj, O.V. Polyakova, V.B. Artaev, P. Trebše2, S.A. Pokryshkin,
A.T. Lebedev
Disinfection represents an important step to purify drinking water as well as swimming pool water. The most widespread procedure involves chlorination which efficiently eliminates micro organisms. However reaction of active chlorine with dissolved organic matter results in formation of numerous organochlorine compounds representing certain hazard for environment and human health. UV-filters belong to emerging contaminants as their application for the skin protection from UV-irradiation becomes more and more popular all over the world. Certain components of UV-filters appear in swimming pools forming new ecotoxicants. In the present study 40 compounds including numerous brominated derivatives forming due to avobenzone chlorination in the sea water are identified by means of gas chromatography/high resolution mass spectrometry. In addition, the applicability of photocatalysis to destroy the forming products was checked. The procedure appeared to be rather efficient. It allows one to decrease the total quantity of avobenzone transformation products by a factor of 10. The only class of compounds demonstrating its stability in the applied conditions is halogenated derivatives of acetophenone.
