Vol 40, No 1 (2018)

issues of origin of water on the planet Earth and hypotheses of hydrosphere genesis have been dealt with. The article underscores interrelationship between the quality of drinking water and the level of evolution of human intellect. Substantiated is the principled insufficiency of assessing the drinking water using only chemical and microbiological methods of control. The research showed the necessity of introducing new standards for drinking water taking into consideration its safety at the cytogenetic level. The article has analyzed problems of obtaining high quality drinking water and methods of its decontamination. For the first time we demonstrated that chlorinated tap water is the medium habitat of hazardous for humans of nonculturable, but viable pathogenic forms of microflora.

The article contains a substantiation of a necessity of a new standard for assessment of the quality of genetically safe drinking water designed for consumption by man. Requirements to the quality of such water include 76 indices and are presented by 10 individual groups; extended is the number of indices of drinking waters of the level of toxicity (biotesting in 7 test objects), normative references to the methods of their control.

Peculiarities of the vital activity of organisms at different concentrations of the D/H isotope ratio in water have been studied. It was established that many organisms react in different ways to both high and low concentrations of deuterium in water resulting in the reduction or enhancement of the activity of metabolic processes. However, the majority of test organisms have optimal indicators within the limits of natural D/H isotope ratio in water. The experiments with human cells in vitro revealed that the reduced deuterium concentrations significantly changed the vital activity indicators of cultures in deuterium-depleted water media. It was found out that not all taxonomic groups of organisms could be sensitive to changes of the D/H isotope ratio in water.

The nonculturable state in sanitary demonstrative microorganisms Escherichia coli and Candida albicans caused by the chlorine disinfection of water has been studied. The technique developed for detecting such microorganisms is assumed as a basis of the State Standard of Ukraine “Quality of water. Detection of microorganisms in nonculturable state in water”.

Developed are projects of State Standards of Ukraine referring to determination of bromide, iodide, and nitrate ions in waters of different types. The method of determination of bromide,ions is based on registration of reflection spectra of products of bromination of phenol red, iodide ions—on the oxidation of the latter to iodine, its gas extraction to the solution of luminol and registration of chemiluminescence in the flow of carrier gas, nitrate ions—on chemiluminescence after reduction of nitrates to nitrites and gas extraction of nitrogen dioxide to the solution of luminol. The methods make it possible to determine bromide ions within the interval 0.02–0.5, iodide ions—0.006–0.5, nitrate ions—0.05–10 mg/dm³. A special attention is given to the study of interfering impact of water components and methods to remove it.