A Picture of Polar Iodinated Disinfection Byproducts in Drinking Water by (UPLC/)ESI-tqMS

Iodinated disinfection byproducts (DBPs) are generally more toxic than their chlorinated and brominated analogues. Up to date, only a few iodinated DBPs in drinking water have been identified by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. In this work, a method for fast selective detection of polar iodinated DBPs was developed using an electrospray ionization-triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (ESI-tqMS) by conducting precursor ion scan of iodide at m/z 126.9. With such a method, pictures of polar iodinated DBPs in chlorinated, chloraminated, and chlorine-ammonia treated water samples were achieved. By coupling state-of-the-art ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) to the ESI-tqMS, structures of 17 iodinated DBPs were tentatively proposed. The results fully demonstrate that, with respect to the DBP number/levels among the three disinfection processes, chloramination generally generated the most/highest iodinated DBPs, chlorination generally produced the fewest/lowest iodinated DBPs, and chlorine-ammonia sequential treatment formed iodinated DBPs lying in between; the numbers of iodinated DBPs in chloraminated Suwannee River Fulvic Acid (SRFA) and Humic Acid (SRHA) were nearly the same, but the levels of aliphatic iodinated DBPs were higher in the chloraminated SRFA while the levels of aromatic iodinated DBPs were higher in the chloraminated SRHA; a couple of nitrogenous iodinated DBPs were found in chloramination and chlorine-ammonia treatment. The ratio of total organic iodine levels in chlorine-ammonia sequential treatment and chloramination could be expressed as a function of the lag time of ammonia addition.