Joshua Powell’s paper entitled “Amide Link Scission in the Polyamide Active Layers of Thin-Film Composite Membranes upon Exposure to Free Chlorine: Kinetics and Mechanisms” is published in Environmental Science and Technology. This is the first study that characterizes the kinetics of amide link scission (i.e., depolymerization) upon exposure to free chlorine. We showed that amide link scission is negligible at acidic pH and significant at alkaline pH. In addition, amide link scission is also significant when membranes chlorinated at acidic pH are subsequently exposed at alkaline pH. The degree of amide link scission upon alkaline rinsing was found to be strongly correlated to the exposure to hypochlorous acid (i.e., integral under the curve of hypochlorous acid concentration vs exposure time) by a unique function regardless of the pH of chlorination, free chlorine concentration in solution or exposure time. This paper can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b02110 (Environmental Science and Technology. 2015, 49, 12136–12144).
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