Removal and transformation of dissolved organic matter in secondary effluent during granular activated carbon treatment

This paper focused on the removal and transformation of the dissolved organic matter (DOM) in secondary effluent during the granular activated carbon (GAC) treatment. Using XAD-8/XAD-4 resins, DOM was fractionated into five classes: hydrophobic acid (HPO-A), hydrophobic neutral (HPO-N), transphilic acid (TPI-A), transphilic neutral (TPI-N) and hydrophilic fraction (HPI). Subsequently, the water quality parameters of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), absorbance of ultraviolet light at 254 nm (UV-254), specific ultraviolet light absorbance (SUVA) and trihalomethane formation potential (THMFP) were analyzed for the unfractionated and fractionated water samples. The results showed that the order of the DOC removal with respect to DOM fractions was observed to be HPI>HPO-A>HPO-N>TPI-A>TPI-N. During the GAC treatment, the THMFP of the unfractionated water samples decreased from 397.4 μg/L to 176.5 μg/L, resulting in a removal efficiency of 55.6%. The removal order of the trihalomethanes (THMs) precursor was as follows: HPO-A>TPI-A>TPI-N>HPO-N>HPI. By the GAC treatment, the specific THMFP of HPO-A, TPI-A, TPI-N and the original unfractionated water samples had a noticeable decrease, while that of HPO-N and HPI showed a converse trend. The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) results showed that the hydroxide groups, carboxylic acids, aliphatic C—H were significantly reduced by GAC treatment.