Geographical and seasonal patterns of geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol in environmental water in Jiangsu Province of China

This study was conducted to obtain the basic data of two common odorants - geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol (gsm and 2-mib) - in environmental water. more specifically,the headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled to gas chromatography mass spectrometry (hs-spme/gc-ms) was applied to determine the levels of gsm and 2-mib in water samples,and the samples were collected depending on water sources,conventional treatment processes,and seasons. the significant difference was shown for the 2-mib levels of source water p < 0.05,the concentrations of gsm and 2-mib decreased significantly as treatment process of tap water moved forward (p < 0.0001),and the significant differences for the levels of gsm and 2-mib were observed among three sampling periods (p < 0.01). the levels of gsm and 2-mib in all water samples were lower than 10 ng l-1,the odor threshold concentration (otc),and the conventional treatment process plays a significant role in removing odorants in tap water. © 2014 zhen ding et al.