[Aspartic Acid Generated in the Process of Chlorination Disinfection By-product Dichloroacetonitrile]

In this study, a method was developed for the determination of dichloroacetonitrile (DCAN) in drinking water by liquid- liquid micro-extraction and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry ( LLE-GC/MS), which used 1,2-dibromopropane as the internal standard and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) as the extractant for high accuracy. The aspartic acid was used as the precursor of the DCAN formation during chlorination and the influencing factors were evaluated. The formation mechanism of DCAN was also discussed. The results showed that the DCAN amount increased with the increase of pH value under the neutral and acidic conditions, however, the amount of DCAN decreased with the increase of pH value under the alkali condition. And the final amount of DCAN under the alkali condition was much less than that under the neutral and acidic conditions. It was also found that the DCAN amount increased with the increase of chlorine addition, while the temperature in the range of 10-30°C had little influence on the DCAN formation. The formation process of the DCAN from aspartic acid by chlorination included seven steps, such as substitution, decarboxylation, oxidation, etc and ultimately formed DCAN.