Synthetical chemicals are ever-present in modern life—in our medications, cosmetics and 

clothing—but what happens to them when they enter our municipal water supplies?

Because these chemicals are out-of-sight, out-of-mind, we assume they cannot harm us 

after we flush them down the sink. However, most water treatment infrastructures were not 

designed to remove synthetic organic chemicals like those found in opioids, personal care 

products and pharmaceuticals.

Consequently,  trace  concentrations  of  those  chemicals  are  present  in  effluent: the water discharged from treatment plants into lakes, rivers and streams. Although found 

in extremely small concentrations, just nanograms or micrograms, the toxicity is not well 

understood in human bodies and ecosystems.

Worse, we know even less about the effects on human and ecosystem health of byproduc

ts created during advanced oxidation water treatment processes; thousands of chemical 

byproducts can be created in just minutes.

Therefore,  it's  crucial  that scientists  and  treatment  plant  managers  understand  the 

mechanisms by which chemical byproducts are created during the treatment process. Dais

uke Minakata, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan 

Technological University, with coauthors Divya Kamath and Stephen Mezyk, sought to 

understand those mechanisms using acetone as a test case.

The authors built upon a 1999 experimental study of acetone reaction pathways during 

treatment, using quantum mechanical calculations to predict the chemical byproducts that 

occur as acetone degrades during the advanced oxidation process.