Plumbed drinking water in developed countries is pretty clean, but invisible contaminants can still lurk. One mysterious “phantom chemical” has ha

"Phantom chemical" identified in drinking water is new to science

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2024-11-23 10:30:03

Plumbed drinking water in developed countries is pretty clean, but invisible contaminants can still lurk. One mysterious “phantom chemical” has haunted drinking water for decades, and now researchers have identified it – and found it’s completely new to science.

Water is often chlorinated to disinfect it, which has proven effective at eliminating most waterborne pathogens but it can create by-products that are harmful to human health. A related compound, chloramine, was found to not only produce fewer of these by-products but also lasted longer. As such, it’s commonly used in the US and some other regions.

Chloramine, however, is not without its own by-products. Chemical analysis has long been found to reveal that about five to 10% of the expected nitrogen disappears, locked up in some other molecule that evaded direct identification for decades.

Now, scientists have finally pinpointed this strange “phantom chemical.” It’s called a chloronitramide anion, which is a negatively charged molecule made up of one chlorine atom, two nitrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms.

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