Kinetics, Mechanism, and Toxicity of Amlodipine Degradation by the UV/Chlorine Process

The UV/chlorine process, as a new type of AOP (Advanced Oxidation Process), was utilized to treat amlodipine (AML)-containing water. The influencing factors, including chlorine dose, UV intensity, solution initial pH value, and ammonia concentration, were investigated. The degradation of AML in real water and the relative contributions of OH center dot and Cl center dot were also studied. Finally, high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) and GC-MS were used to identify the possible degradation products. The results demonstrated that the AML degradation process was fitted with apparent first-order kinetics. AML degradation had a positive correlation with UV intensity and chlorine dose, and a negative correlation with ammonia concentration. In the presence of ammonia nitrogen and DOM, the removal of AML from real water was reduced. OH center dot made a dominant percentage contribution of 55.7% to the degradation of AML. Sixteen intermediates were detected and identified. A possible degradation mechanism was also proposed. Acute toxicity tests and risk prediction both illustrated that the complete removal of AML does not guarantee the reduction of acute toxicity, but a prolonged degradation promoted the detoxification of toxic intermediates. The UV/chlorine process can be regarded to be an effective method to remove AML and reduce ecological risk.