Browsing by Author "Triantafyllidou, Simoni"

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    Addressing and Assessing Lead Threats in Drinking Water: Non-Leaded Brass, Product Testing, Particulate Lead Occurrence and Effects of the Chloride to Sulfate Mass Ratio on Corrosion
    Triantafyllidou, Simoni (Virginia Tech, 2006-09-11)
    Growing concern over adverse health effects from low level lead exposure motivated reassessment of lead occurrence in drinking water, from the perspective of 1) possibly eliminating lead from new brass materials, and 2) performance testing of existing products. During the course of this thesis work, it was discovered that several cases of childhood lead poisoning in North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington D.C. occurred from contaminated potable water. That disconcerting finding prompted additional work into 3) deficiencies in existing lead testing of drinking water samples, and 4) impacts of water treatment steps on lead leaching. Meters, components, and fittings manufactured from non-leaded brass (< 0.25 percent lead content) are increasingly specified for use in water distribution systems and premise plumbing, in response to California's Proposition 65 and the proposed Lead Free Drinking Water Act. An in-depth review of the available literature revealed that non-leaded brass releases minimal amounts of lead and other contaminants of concern to drinking water. There is legitimate concern about the corrosion resistance and longevity of these non-leaded alloys in the range of waters that will be encountered in practice. Nonetheless, when the potential impacts to manufacturers, utilities and consumers are considered, non-leaded brasses appear to be attractive albeit at slightly higher cost. For existing leaded brass products, concerns have been raised over potential limitations of performance standards used to certify the products as "safe" in the marketplace. The ANSI/NSF 61 Section 9 test is the industry standard, and its protocol is critically evaluated from the perspective of the leaching solution chemistry. Testing indicated that the protocol water is reasonably representative of a typical water supply. However, some lower pH and lower alkalinity waters can be much more aggressive than the existing section 9 water, and for potable water with these characteristics, problems with higher than desired lead leaching may occur. It may be desirable to tighten the standard's pass/fail lead criterion in order to account for this problem in practice. Several cases of childhood lead poisoning from water have been recently encountered, which prompted environmental assessments. It was visually obvious that some of the lead particles ingested by these children, present in water from the tap, were not completely dissolving in the standard method with weak acid recommended by the US EPA. A laboratory investigation proved that up to 80% particulate lead in water samples could be "missed" by the standard protocol. Unfortunately, tests with simulated gastric fluid revealed that much of this particulate lead would be bioavailable in the presence of chloride, warmer temperatures and lower pH inside the human stomach. It is recommended that water utilities be alert to this possible problem and that environmental assessments of lead poisoned children use stronger digestions to detect lead in water. Several of the lead poisoning instances occurred after the utility changed both disinfectant chemicals (from chlorine to chloramine) and coagulant types. Although authorities initially thought chloramine was the cause based on experiences in Washington D.C., bench scale studies in this work proved that a change in coagulant from aluminum sulfate to either ferric chloride or polyaluminum chloride was in fact the main reason of the lead spikes. The reduction in sulfate and increase in chloride increased the chloride to sulfate mass ratio of the water supply. A higher chloride to sulfate mass ratio triggered much higher (2.3-40 times more) lead leaching from solder connected to copper pipe. The adverse effects of the increase in the ratio could not be eliminated by adding a corrosion inhibitor.
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    In-Situ Remediation of Small Leaks in Water Pipes: Impacts of Water Chemistry, Physical Parameters and the Presence of Particles
    Tang, Min (Virginia Tech, 2017-03-02)
    Aging and leaking water infrastructure wastes water resources and creates public health risks. Upgrading of potable water systems represents a large financial burden for water utilities and private property owners. The conventional approaches of repair, rehabilitation and replacement are very effective, but will take decades to implement even if a financial commitment to do so was made immediately. A novel approach of in-situ remediation of leaks, achieved by harnessing the ability of water or pipe to repair leaks via clogging, could potentially reduce leak rates and extend the lifetime of existing infrastructure at relatively low cost and inconvenience. Physical clogging, precipitation and metallic corrosion were identified as major mechanisms of in-situ leak remediation in potable water pipelines. Autogenous repair (i.e., self-repair without added particles) of small leak-holes (150–"1000 μm) in copper and iron was validated in the laboratory at water pHs of 3.0–11.0, operating water pressures of 20–60 psi, upward and downward leak orientations, and for a range of water chemistries. In bench scale experiments, the time to repair of iron pipe leaks increased with leak size to the power of 0.89–1.89, and decreased with pipe wall thickness to the power of -1.9 to -1.0. The time to repair of copper pipe leaks increased with water pressure to the power of 1.7. Additionally, the waters with a higher DO and corrosivity as measured by RSI, significantly decreased the time to repair of carbon steel 400 μm leaks by 50–70%. The presence of chlorine dioxide significantly increased the fraction of repaired 200 μm copper pipe leaks by 3 times when compared to the control without any disinfectant. In the building scale study, the fraction of repaired iron pipe leaks decreased with the logarithmic leak size with a slope of -0.65 after one-year duration of experiments, while leak orientation and water pressure were not influential in time to or likelihood of repair for iron pipe leaks. Addition of calcium carbonate particles (~8.8 μ]m), silica particles (~29 μm) and wood ash particles (~160 μm) in Blacksburg, VA tap water at a water pressure of 10 psi increased the fraction of remediated iron pipe leaks of 280–1000 μm diameter sizes. Although the control condition with no added particles for 58 days resulted in remediation of 0/12 leaks, remediation rate increased to 1/12 with calcium carbonate particles, to 10/12 with silica particles and to 10/12 with wood ash particles. Leak size and particle size played an important role in controlling the remediation success rate. The strength of the in-situ leak repair was sometimes very strong and resilient. The sealing materials of leak-holes repaired at 20–60 psi could sometimes withstand a 100 psi water pressure without failure, demonstrating the potential of the approach to sustain aging and leaking infrastructure. In-situ leak repair can also occur naturally, and the success rate might be unintentionally altered by adjustment of chemistry or treatments that decrease or increase particulates.
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    Lead (Pb) Contamination of Potable Water: Public Health Impacts, Galvanic Corrosion and Quantification Considerations
    Triantafyllidou, Simoni (Virginia Tech, 2011-09-08)
    The issue of lead exposure through drinking water was re-examined in light of modern public health goals, recent high-profile cases of elevated lead in water, and emerging concerns regarding the efficacy of legally mandated remedial strategies. A critical literature review revealed that serious lead-in-water hazards are present at many US schools and homes, and that the threat to individuals is not eliminated by existing regulations. Health studies have provided strong links between lead in water and lead in blood of exposed populations, even at relatively low levels of exposure compared to reported lead occurrence in US tap water samples. As efforts shift from addressing pervasive lead sources that once elevated the blood lead of large percentages of the population, to more isolated individual cases requiring exceptional attention, the importance of carefully considering lead in water as a potential source for elevated blood lead increases. Consistent with decades of prior research linking elevated water lead to elevated blood lead (EBL), lead-contaminated water in the high-profile case of Washington DC markedly increased the incidence of EBL for very young children. Specifically, incidence of EBL for children aged ≤ 1.3 years increased more than 4 times during 2001-2003 when lead in water was high, compared to 2000 when lead in water was low. The incidence of EBL for children aged ≤ 1.3 years was highly correlated (R² = 0.81) to 90th percentile lead-in-water levels from 2000-2007, and the risk of exposure to high water lead levels varied markedly in different neighborhoods of the city. Analysis conducted herein focused on identifying "worst-case" neighborhoods and populations. Specifically, this was the first study of the Washington DC case to focus on infants who are most vulnerable to harm from lead in water, and to perform smaller area analysis at the neighborhood (i.e., zip code) level in order to capture pockets of high risk among local communities. Prior biokinetic modeling efforts, examining the potential adverse impacts of lead-in-water exposure, were re-examined to explicitly consider new public health goals. This included impacts on the most sensitive population groups (e.g., young children and particularly formula-fed infants), the potential variability in blood lead levels (BLLs) amongst exposed individuals within those groups (e.g., most sensitive children at the upper tail of the BLL distribution), more conservative BLL thresholds reflecting low-level adverse effects (e.g., 5, 2 and 1 µg/dL versus 10 µg/dL), and the possibility of acute health impacts. This re-evaluation creates a paradigm shift, in that levels of lead in water that were previously considered inconsequential are demonstrated to be of concern in specific circumstances. The replacement of lead service lines in front of consumers' homes is a costly, federally mandated remedial action if a water utility exceeds the US EPA lead action level. Because utilities do not own the entire lead service line, they often only replace the portion of the service line up to the property line, typically with copper pipe. Experiences in Washington DC, as revealed by Freedom of Information Act requests, indicated that partial pipe replacements were not decreasing lead in water, and were actually associated with relatively high incidence of childhood lead poisoning. This prompted the first comprehensive investigation of potential long-term problems arising from galvanic corrosion between the remaining lead pipe and the newly installed copper pipe. Bench-scale experiments demonstrated that galvanic connections between lead pipe (new or aged) and copper pipe increased lead release into the water by 1.1-16 times, when compared to a full length of lead pipe alone. The small area of lead pipe adjacent to the copper joint (<0.5 ft) was gravely affected by galvanic corrosion, and accumulated a thick lead-rust layer (1 inch wide) that constituted a reservoir for semi-random particulate lead detachment into the water. The work on simulated partial pipe replacements revealed that under worst-case scenarios of highly contaminated water samples, most of the lead was not quantified if water samples were not mixed thoroughly after standard preservation (i.e., after addition of 0.15% v/v HNO₃), or if water samples were transferred from one bottle to another prior to preservation. While there is no reason to believe that sample handling and pre-treatment dramatically skew regulatory compliance with the US EPA lead action level, slight variations from one approved protocol to another may cause lead-in-water health risks to be dramatically underestimated. This is of special concern in unusual situations of "worst-case" individual exposures to highly contaminated water, associated with childhood lead poisoning. This work provides the water industry and health agencies with important new insights and perspectives on an old problem. Results can improve strategies to detect and mitigate lead-in-water hazards for individuals or populations, and inform future revisions to the US EPA Lead and Copper Rule.