Abstract
Reaction mechanism of humic acids of different origin with chlorine was investigated.
Two kinds of humic acids showed the different patterns of formation of chloroform and the other chlorinated substances under various conditions for chlorination. High performance liquid chromatography, Sephadex gel chromato graphy and infrared spectrophotometry of humic acid and chlorinated one demonstrated that these differences are derived from the different functional groups in a molecule of humic acid, and, in addition, humic acid is decomposed to lower molecular weight substances having molecular weight of about several thousand and higher chloroform formation potential.
