Hydrogen Peroxide Formation during Ozonation of Olefins and Phenol: Mechanistic Insights from Oxygen Isotope Signatures.

Mitigation of undesired byproducts from ozonation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) such as aldehydes and ketones is currently hampered by limited knowledge of their precursors and formation pathways. Here, the stable oxygen isotope composition of HO formed simultaneously with these byproducts was studied to determine if it can reveal this missing information. A newly developed procedure, which quantitatively transforms HO to O for subsequent O/O ratio analysis, was used to determine the δO of HO generated from ozonated model compounds (olefins and phenol, pH 3-8).