Do you know what’s in your drinking water? Scientists finally did, after solving a 40-year-old mystery about a chemical byproduct that kept showing up in tap water, leaving them scratching their heads.
The new chemical compound – which scientists had observed in tap water for decades – remained unknown, due to difficulties in separating it from the hypersaline (saltier) water in which it was found. But diligent researchers have found a way, and now, according to… November 21 Research article Published in the magazine sciences, There is a name for the compound: chloronitramide.
This is a byproduct of naturally occurring chemicals and Chloramine– A disinfectant formed when ammonia is added to chlorine, and has been added to drinking water since the 1930s to help stop the presence of harmful organisms, according to what the British newspaper “Daily Mail” reported. Environmental Protection Agency. In the United States alone, the article notes, chlorinated water systems serve more than 113 million people.
But is it toxic? Unfortunately, this part remains a mystery.
“Although the toxicity is currently unknown, the prevalence of this byproduct and its similarity to other toxic molecules is concerning,” wrote editor Michael A. You are in the summary of the article.
According to the article, chloronitramide was detected in 40 drinking water samples from 10 US drinking water systems that use chloramines. In some cases, researchers have found it at levels above the EPA limit for most disinfection byproducts. It has not been detected in ultra-pure water or drinking water not treated with chlorine-containing disinfectants — in Switzerland, for example, where ozone is used for disinfection.
It’s good news that the authors have identified a way for consumers to remove the chemical byproduct from water: activated carbon. “It has been shown to be removed by activated carbon in the literature,” study co-author and EPA researcher David Wahmann said in a news conference about the findings on Thursday. “Maybe more work is needed to figure out what it breaks down into…but I think a Brita filter, or…whatever type of carbon filter you have in your refrigerator would probably remove it.”
The news about chloronitramid comes on the heels of President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which raised concerns about fluoride in drinking water. He said Trump would rid tap water of the chemical ionizer — which has been widely added to water since 1962 to prevent tooth decay — on his first day in office, citing a host of health risks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms that fluoridated drinking water is safe.
Regarding chloramines, water expert David Sedlak, Plato Malozymov Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, says: He told CNN“The challenge is that we don’t really know the health effects, because unlike non-chlorine disinfection byproducts, not a lot of toxicology has been done on these compounds.” Since local water systems can’t afford to screen for these byproducts, it will be up to the federal government, Sedlak said.
“It’s this kind of thing, when the government is doing well, it’s doing a good job of protecting us by looking at these things. But I don’t think the EPA or the CDC or the National Institutes of Health have the funding to answer these questions.”
Susan D. said: Richardson, an expert on drinking water disinfection byproducts at the University of South Carolina Chemical and engineering news The results were groundbreaking. “It will be important to quantify the amount of this new disinfection byproduct in drinking water distribution systems to determine whether it increases or degrades over time before it reaches consumers’ taps,” she said, adding that she suspected chloronitraamide was toxic, but the idea that activated carbon would remove it was “amazing”.
Meanwhile, USC environmental engineering professor Daniel Macari said in a… sciences Magazine commentary Identifying chloronitramide, regardless of whether it is toxic or not, “calls for a moment of thought for water researchers and engineers.”
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