Aqueous chlorination of carbamazepine: kinetic study and transformation product identification

Carbamazepine reactivity and fate during chlorination was investigated in this study. From a kinetic standpoint, a third-order reaction (first-order relative to the CBZ concentration and second-order relative to the free chlorine concentration) was observed at neutral and slightly acidic pH, whereas a second-order reaction (first order relative to the CBZ concentration and first order relative to the free chlorine concentration) was noted under alkaline conditions. In order to gain insight into the observed pH-dependence of the reaction order, elementary reactions (i.e. reactions of Cl2, Cl2O, HOCl with CBZ and of ClO(-) with CBZ or of HOCl with the ionized form of CBZ) were highlighted and second order rate constants of each of them were calculated. Close correlations between the experimental and modeled values were obtained under these conditions. Cl2 and Cl2O were the main chlorination agents at neutral and acidic pH. These results indicate that, for a 1 mg/L free chlorine concentration and 1-10 mg/L chloride concentration at pH 7, halflives about 52-69 days can be expected. A low reactivity of chlorine with CBZ could thus occur under the chlorination steps used during water treatment. From a mechanistic viewpoint, several transformation products were observed during carbamazepine chlorination. As previously described for the chlorination of polynuclear aromatic or unsaturated compounds, we proposed monohydroxylated, epoxide, diols or chlorinated alcohol derivatives of CBZ for the chemical structures of these degradation products. Most of these compounds seem to accumulate in solution in the presence of excess chlorine.