It is well accepted that natural organic material (NOM) is the principal precursors of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) during the treatment of drinking water with chlorine. However, using NOM directly to explore the formation of DBPs is impeded by the variety and unclarity of its structure. Instead, using a relatively simple model compound such as hesperetin is thought to give out some insight in the incorporation of chlorine. In order to verify the hypothesis, hesperetin solution was chlorinated under varying conditions and total organic halogen (TOX), DBPs formation, as well as ultraviolet (UV) absorbance were measured. The results show that chloroform, monochloroacetic acid (MCAA), dichloroacetic acid (DCAA) and trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) consist of the majority of TOX. The formation of chloroform increases with the increasing of pH, while the formation of DCAA and TCAA is favored under low pH. The yields of TOX and the main DBPs compound have a good relationship with the differential UV absorbance. All these features were observed in the NOM. It can be concluded that the behavior of hesperetin is similar with that of NOM during chlorination and it can serve as a good model to study the mechanism and kinetics of DBP formation in future work. Includes 6 references, figures.