Total and efficient removal of tribromoacetic acid by ultraviolet irradiation

Tribromoacetic acid (TBAA), one of the typically recalcitrant and toxic chlorine disinfection byproducts (DBPs), is widespread in the drinking water and threating human health. The environment-friendly technology, UV irradiation, could efficiently destruct TBAA. The present study investigated the removal efficiency, photodegradation kinetics, and photodegradation mechanism of TBAA under UV irradiation. It revealed that the photodegradaton process of TBAA agreed well with the pseudo-first order kinetics, with the rate constant of 1.084 min-1 and half-time of 0.64 minutes. Further study on intermediate products formation and mass balance indicated that complete debromination and detoxification were obtained with almost all the bromine atoms released as bromide ions, and suggest that the cleavage of three C-Br bonds concurrently occurred during the photolysis of one TBAA molecule. It will provide some guidance for efficient treatment of brominated contaminants in water.