The addition of oxygenated compounds in gasoline to enhance octane levels, increase burning efficiency and reduce the emission of atmospheric pollutants has become more common as air quality standards have become more stringent in the past decade. In recent years, one fuel oxygenate, known as Methyl tert-Butyl Ether (MTBE) has been used more frequently because of low production cost, high octane rating, evaporative qualities and solubility with other gasoline components. Recently, MTBE has been detected as a contaminant in drinking water sources in California and throughout the Continental United States.

Oxidizing agents that serve as disinfection agents, chlorine species, ultraviolet light and advanced oxidation processes have the potential to degrade MTBE, potentially forming by-products that may pose health concerns. This project will investigate the degradation of MTBE by chlorination, UV and UV/H₂O₂ treatment and the identification of by products resulting from these processes using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis.

To date, a study of the kinetics of the degradation of MTBE with the application of chlorine as sodium hypochlorite to deionized water buffered to a pH of 7 and a pH of 4 containing of MTBE over a 24 hour period has been conducted. A method was developed to measure MTBE concentration based upon the gas concentration of the headspace in the sample container using direct vapor injection into a gas chromatograph. After a 24 hour incubation period in a batch reactor, no significant MTBE degradation was observed.