Degradation kinetics and pathways of β-cyclocitral and β-ionone during UV photolysis and UV/chlorination reactions.

β-cyclocitral and β-ionone are ones of major algal odorants produced by oxidation of the β-carotene that exists in algae cells. These compounds degraded the quality of drinking water therefore it needed to be treated in drinking water treatment by advanced oxidation processes. In this study, UV photolysis and UV-chlorination reactions along with chlorination to remove these odorants in water were compared. Kinetics of three reactions were well fitted at pseudo-first order model. Among three reactions, UV-chlorination was the most effective due to generation of OH and Cl radicals. β-ionone showed faster degradation compared to β-cyclocitral due to the existence of double bond in the alkyl carbon chain. In addition, radical contributions of degradation of odorants were examined. During UV-chlorination, UV photolysis contributed around 50% of removal for two odorants. OH radical took part of 36% removal of β-ionone and 50% removal of β-cyclocitral. Unlike β-ionone, β-cyclocitral was not degraded by reactive chlorine species during UV-chlorination. Acidic pH was favorable for UV-chlorination due to different quantum yield and radical scavenging effect by chlorine species. Formation of trace amount of chloroform was observed during UV-chlorination. The methyl ketone group of β-ionone was the main site for chloroform production. Several byproducts during UV photolysis and UV-chlorination of β-ionone were identified by GC-MS, and these were degraded with further reaction by UV-induced isomerization, OH radical, and bond scission mechanisms. β-cyclocitral was formed as byproducts during UV-chlorination of β-ionone. Based on degradation byproducts, the degradation pathways of β-ionone and β-cyclocitral of UV photolysis and UV-chlorination were suggested based on the identified byproducts. This study showed UV-chlorination process can be applied for degrading odorants like β-cyclocitral and β-ionone.