ABSTRACT
In order to avoid this threat the water chlorination is commonly applied in water treatment processes. This technology of water disinfection is popular in the whole world because of high efficiency and low price of chlorine. On the other hand, high chlorine concentration in water determines the formation of significant level of disinfection by-products mainly containing trihalomethanes. Trihalomethanes have toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic character and they are dangerous for human health (WHO 2000, Krasner et al. 2006, Richardson et al. 2007, Goslan et al. 2009, Bull et al. 2009). During the water transport the chlorine react with humic substances, which are trihalomethanes precursors, and with
1 THE PROBLEM OF TRIHALOMETHANES FORMATION IN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEMS
Decreasing water demand in water supply systems, that has been observed in last time, results in longer time of water delivery to consumers. This fact causes a health hazard because of water bacteriology contamination in pipe network. In order to maintain a high safety of exploitation of water supply system it is required to use monitoring system as a control process of water quality during its treatment and distribution. Testing for quality is crucial because the water’s contents change constantly during its transport to the consumers. Many factors affect these changes, most importantly: chemical and biological stability of drinking water delivered into water pipe network, its temperature, water pipe’s hydraulic exploitation conditions, its technical and sanitary condition, material from which the pipes are made, chemical and biological deposits and disinfectant presence.
