Understanding medicinal taste and odour formation in drinking waters

The formation of bromophenols during chlorination of phenol- and bromide-containing waters can be critical for taste and odour problems in drinking waters. The work performed has confirmed that flavour threshold concentrations of some bromophenols are in the ng/L range. In addition, under typical drinking water conditions, kinetic experiments and model simulations performed have shown that (1) bromination is the predominant reaction pathway, (2) bromophenol reaction kinetics are rapid leading to taste-and-odour episodes that last for short periods of 10-20 min, (3) increasing phenol concentration and pH tends to increase taste and odour intensity, (4) increasing chlorine or bromide concentrations tends to shorten the duration of the taste-and-odour episode.