CURRENT RESEARCH
During the summer of 2007 Dr Heasley’s three students, Amber Kerk, Kristin Mitrovich and Luke Tatum studied the reactions of chlorine with model organic molecules to understand how contaminants are formed when drinking water is chlorinated. Both Luke's and Kristin's reactions produced previously unknown product molecules whose structures were established with assistance from University of California faculty: Luke's by x-ray crystallography at UCSD and Kristin's using high-powered mass spectrometry at UCR. These compounds were formed and identified for the first time. Amber also identified the structure of a previously unknown reaction product. All three of these compounds suggest how water becomes contaminated during chlorination.
AREA OF RESEARCH
My overall research interests center around the contamination of drinking water by organic compounds such as chloroform, CHCl 3, when it is chlorinated with one of the following common chlorinating agents chlorine, Cl 2, hypochlorous acid, HOCl, hypochlorite ion, OCl -, monochloramine, NH 2Cl and dichloramine, NHCl 2. Most of the contamination occurs when the chlorinating agent chlorinates the contaminants present in drinking water; these contaminants consist of the humic acids and various organic compounds. The humic acids are polymeric conglomerates consisting of breakdown products from lignin (resulting from decomposition of leaves and other humic materials) and extraneous proteins and carbohyrates. Most contaminants from the humic acids and the chlorinating agents are derived from highly reactive phenols which are primarily part of the lignin portion of the conglomerates. Our approach to research in this area has been to select models of the phenols in the humic acids and study their reactions with the various chlorinating agents. Examples of the phenols that we have studied are: phenol, the cresols and chlorinated cresols, resorcinol and chlorinated resorcinols, and the pentachloride of resorcinol. Click to view Dr. Heasley's Publications (1966 - present) |