Occurrence and fate of organotins in a waterworks in north China.

This paper first reports the occurrence and fate of monobutyltin, dibutyltin, tributyltin, monophenyltin, diphenyltin and triphenyltin in drinking water from north China. The sum of the six organotins in raw water and drinking water ranged from 33.3 to 476.9 ng Sn L(-1) and from no detection to 142.4 ng Sn L(-1), respectively. The highest concentration of triphenyltin in drinking water and raw water were 41.3, 44.6 ng Sn L(-1), and those for tributyltin were 32.1, 37.6 ng Sn L(-1), respectively, which were observed from April to July. Conventional treatment processes and advanced treatment processes could not remove organotins completely.