A Simple Alternative Method for Preservation of 2-Methylisoborneol in Water Samples

Chun-Cheng Fan, Yi-Ting Chiu and Tsair-Fuh Lin
Additional contact information
Chun-Cheng Fan: Department of Environmental Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701, Taiwan
Yi-Ting Chiu: Department of Environmental Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701, Taiwan
Tsair-Fuh Lin: Department of Environmental Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-12

Abstract: 2-Methylisoborneol (2-MIB) is one of the most commonly observed taste and odor (T&O) compounds present in drinking water sources. As it is biodegradable, a preservation agent, typically mercury chloride, is needed if the water is not analyzed right after sampling. Since mercury is a toxic metal, an alternative chemical that is cheaper and less toxic is desirable. In this study, two chemicals commonly used in water treatment processes, chlorine (as sodium hypochlorite) and KMnO 4 (potassium permanganate), are studied to determine their feasibility as preservation agents for 2-MIB in water. Preservation experiments were first conducted in deionized water spiked with 2-MIB and with chlorine or permanganate at 4 and 25 °C. The results indicate that 2-MIB concentrations in the water samples spiked with both chemicals remained almost constant within 14 days for all the tested conditions, suggesting that oxidation and volatilization did not cause the loss of 2-MIB in the system. The experiments were further conducted for three different reservoir water samples with 30–60 ng/L of indulgent 2-MIB. The experimental results demonstrated that preservation with permanganate may have underestimated the 2-MIB concentration in the samples as a result of the formation of manganese dioxide particles in natural water and adsorption of 2-MIB onto the particles. Chlorine was demonstrated to be a good preservation agent for all three tested natural waters since oxidation of 2-MIB was negligible and biodegradation was inhibited. When the residual chlorine concentrations were controlled to be higher than 0.5 mg/L on the final day (day 14) of the experiments, the concentration reduction of 2-MIB became lower than 13% at both of the tested temperatures. The results demonstrated that sodium hypochlorite can be used as an alternative preservation agent for 2-MIB in water before analysis.

Keywords: 2-methylisoborneol; sodium hypochlorite; preservation; potassium permanganate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/5/1015/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/5/1015/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:5:p:1015-:d:147410

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().