Talk:Chloramine

Removed text

I have removed the recently added section: Possible Health Effects because it seems to be making a POV argument without any attribution -- as far as can be told from the article, it could be someone's speculation. I think it points to a useful area for expanding the article, but it needs referencing, NPOV, and encyclopedic style revisions.

The text I removed follows: -Rholton 13:54, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Chloramine is essentially a chemical compound which slowly degrades to chlorine. An argument could be made that it poses greater dangers to humans than the standard chlorinated water treatment.

The argument goes thus: Chlorine dissolved in water is dissipated as it reacts with organic matter in the water and also when air displaces it from solution. With Chloramine we have a stable compound that is being ingested intact into the human body, to breakdown to chlorine within the human body.

The fact that special tubing replacements are recommended for devices that are being switched from chlorinated water to chloramine should be indicative of a potential problem. Chlorine being one of the most powerful oxidizing agents on earth, we essentially are allowing a compound that generates chlorine be introduced into our bodies. Since one of the main water storage sites in our bodies is the bladder, one could suspect that if there is going to be a health problem with chloramine it would first be noticed with higher bladder cancer rates.

Chloramine poses unique health risks that are NOT posed by chlorine. For example, it can increase the leaching of lead into drinking water, which can pose a significant public health hazard. I've cited a study explaining this and using data from surveys that took data on blood lead levels. In addition, chloramine use results in similar health risks to chlorine. I added a reference to an article in a peer-reviewed journal that makes the argument you removed here--that it poses greater danger to humans than the standard chlorinated water treatment. Part of the reason for this is due to the way chemicals are regulated: in general, humans realize that certain chemicals are harmful, so they create a new treatment to minimize them...but this introduces new chemical byproducts that are actually more harmful, just not fully understood. This picture is starting to emerge not just with chloramine but with other modern forms of disinfecting, and it's a general trend that happens over and over again whenever/wherever humans use synthetic chemicals. Cazort (talk) 14:24, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Whatever. Wikipedia is probably not the right forum for advice.--Smokefoot (talk) 18:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the right place for anything that can be referenced in WP:Reliable Sources. I agree that it's important to keep an encyclopedic tone though, which means not engaging in prescriptive statements (i.e. you should do this), and only citing which groups are advocating (i.e. X group advocates doing Y because Z) and letting people draw their own conclusions. But the point I made in the above paragraph is hardly original research--it's not even my idea, it's taken directly from this source: [1] which I cited in the article. Cazort (talk) 16:57, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

References for health complaints

Here's a link to an article about people who had health complaints after their city converted to chloramine: http://www.almanacnews.com/morgue/2004/2004_12_15.chloramine.shtml Jeff Fenstermacher 17:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Here's a link to the peer-reviewed manuscript documenting our investigation of the above-referenced health complaints: http://www.ehjournal.net/content/5/1/18 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JMWeintraub (talk • contribs) .

"Chloromine"

You might want to add something about chloromine as there is common confusion about this bleaching / photographic product in many net articles on the subject of water treatment for both brewing and aquariums. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.18.27.149 (talk • contribs) .

What exactly is "chloromine"? As far as I can tell it's just a misspelling of chloramine. —Keenan Pepper 02:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Expansion

Seems to me that after a whole section on chloramine use as public water treatment, then saying under Safety the one-line "NH2Cl is toxic", requires a greater explanation. If NH2Cl is toxic, why is it safe to use in public water systems? - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 21:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Toxicity is relavent to concentration, and there is debate about it's safety for use in public water systems. I agree that more info is need on NH2Cl toxicity. But let's not be so obtuse about why it's not there.James.folsom 22:12, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

"Organic chloramines"

There are other chloramines than monochloramine/inorganic chloramine. Someone needs to decide if the article is to include organic chloramines. I'm guessing it shouldn't, and so the title should be Monochloramine or inorganic chloramine.James.folsom 22:12, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you give examples? Physchim62 (talk) 23:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

HClO can react with any amino group turning whatever compound that bears said amino group into a chloramine. This article seems to be intended to cover only monochloramine which is a specific chloramine. Chloramine is a category of compounds. I added some info about this chemistry here hypochlorous acid. James.folsom 22:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Degrading

Anyone here know how long Chloramine in tap water takes to degrade? It's a battle for millions of aquarium owners as Chlorine takes 24 hours aerated to degrade. So I was wondering if Chloramine can be removed in a similar manner even if it takes far longer? Would be useful information to add to the main page perhaps? --Quatermass 08:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Take 2 weeks I'm told. --Quatermass (talk) 19:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Flavor

When they switched to chlorimine in the San Francisco Bay Area, my first clue that something had changed was a really strong chlorine-like smell. I think the idea that chlorimine tastes better than chlorine is obviated by the fact that you end up with a larger concentration of it coming out of the tap. -- Doom 01:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

While what you say about concentration is accurate, the largest reason for the strong odor is that chloramine has a very pronounced sharp irritating odor, even in extremely small concentrations. Total EPA environmental exposure limits are 4ppm, and at the point of origin, monochloramine in water supplies is often 2ppm or a little more. Worse, from an odor standpoint, a faucet areator can make a large fraction of the chloramine airborne. Norm Reitzel (talk) 00:00, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Does chloramine cause Pb (Lead) to dissolve in drinking

water and is chloramine therefore hazardous? I saw something about this in Science News.Rich (talk) 02:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Probably only if the pH is below 7. I'd be far more worried about having Lead pipes for transporting drinking water. Very nasty thing Lead poisoning. --Quatermass (talk) 19:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes it does, I added this to the article, citing a study that found clear evidence of this from looking at data on blood lead levels that had been collected in one county in North Carolina. It is a public health concern because many areas still do have significant amounts of lead pipes. Cazort (talk) 17:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Lead in plumbing fixtures has been outlawed in California, but not in every U.S. state... http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/PollutionPrevention/upload/Lead-in-Plumbing-Fact-Sheet.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.18.54 (talk) 03:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Color of Chloramine wrong?

Why is Chloramine said to be green in this article?

MSDS data sheets clearly indicate it is a colourless to yellow liquid.

Has the picture provider mistaken Chlorine, which is green, with Chloramine?

--Quatermass (talk) 19:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

While the photograph of the pool looks like it may contain an algal growth, it actually is the case that very dilute aqueous solutions of monochloramine have a distinct greenish-yellow cast. The color is caused by the broad aborbtion of chloramine in water at 243 nanometers, which absorbs blue light and produces the green cast. Norm Reitzel (talk) 00:08, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

And the picture of pool looks more like containing algae (water is not clear, you cannot see bottom of pool). 88.114.58.101 (talk) 17:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)-anon

Further questions

• Does chloramine slowly dissolve copper pipes?
• If chloramine treated tap water is passed through a domestic water filter cartridge (in reality an ion exchange resin and activated charcoal) what chloramine chemistry goes on, if any?

82.38.63.64 (talk) 20:52, 14 August 2009 (UTC) alias 'Stuffed cat' when I log in properly.

Changed NH₂Cl in headline to monochloramine

I'm new to wikipedia editing, but I thought that the subscript in the headline looked really bad. See the above headline. Is it ok that I changed this? If it isn't just revert it. Thanks. Thebombzen (talk) 13:27, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Contradictory statements re the effectiveness of boiling to remove chloramine

In the section "Removing chloramine from water" it states that chloramine can be removed from water after a 20 minute boil and it refers to reference #12 which is a link to a PDF file on the San Francisco municipal water site. This is a consumer oriented FAQ which makes no reference whatsoever to any actual tests or experiments to support this statement.

Then in the section labeled "Situations where monochloramine is removed from water supplies", reference #13 (which btw is currently a dead link) is cited. I found the paper cited at this link:

http://hbd.org/brewbayou/LIBRARY/Articles/BT_Chlorine%20.pdf

In tests performed by the writer of this article, the half life of boiling water to remove chloramines was found to be up to 30 minutes (26.6 ± 4.8 min), thus less than half the chloramine might be removed after a 30 min boil. According to this it would take at least an hour to remove chloramines from water, counting from the time the boiling point is reached, which would also result in significant water loss due to evaporation. So no matter how you slice it a 20 min boil is not going to render water chloramine free.

By contrast, test results showed 86% reduction in chloramines after a single pass through a Brita activated charcoal water filter (in the carafe style filter) and a 93% reduction in chloramines after a second pass through the same filter. Unless there is evidence countering these findings, a double pass through an activated charcoal filter of this type would seem to be the preferable method of removing chloramines in a household situation.

However I have identified no other sources, nor any information on how long consumer water filters of this type will remain effective for chloramine removal. Filter life might (or might not) be reduced for this chemical compared to other substances being filtered.

In any case I believe the claim that a 20 min boil will effectively remove all, or even most, chloramine from tap water should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.60.99 (talk) 21:55, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Reference 10 that supposedly supports chloramines cause cancer doesn't exist any more. If the assertion cannot be supported by a valid reference, it should be deleted. Chemistmax (talk) 01:34, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

The website "Citizens Concerned About Chloramine" is not a reliable source; it exists to promote a specific POV. Consider the claim that chloramine cannot be removed from water by distilling it. Ridiculous. Anything can be removed from water by distilling it. Removing this incorrect paragraph solves the contradiction above. -Jordgette [talk] 02:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Removing Chloramines from water

Most of the processes listed under this heading don't remove Chloramine from water, but just break down the Chloramine molecules in the water. This may not be very helpful as the breakdown products may have an equal or greater deleterious effect as the chloramine itself. I suggest processes that break down Chloramine should be under a heading "Breaking down Chloramines in water" so that the discussion will then encompass the breakdown products. Nick Hill (talk) 11:37, 13 April 2013 (UTC)