Identifying Unknown Chemicals and Disinfection Byproducts in Swimming Pools and Hot Tubs

Swimming pools are treated with disinfectants to protect swimmers from pathogens and prevent illness. Disinfectants will react with naturally occurring organic matter in water and, in the case of swimming pools, they can also react with chemicals introduced to the water by the swimmers themselves to produce byproducts that can be potentially harmful. It is important to treat water while minimizing the risk of disinfection byproducts (DBPs). One of the first steps is to chemically characterize the DBPs in swimming pools and hot tubs (very complex matrices), using non-targeted analysis since many of the contaminants are unknowns. Gas chromatography with high resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-HRT) was used for the identification of "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" in swimming pool and hot tub water.