Grantee Research Project Results

2022 Progress Report: Occurrence, fate, transport, and treatment of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in landfill leachate

EPA Grant Number: R839670
Title: Occurrence, fate, transport, and treatment of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in landfill leachate
Investigators: Guelfo, Jennifer
Institution: Texas Tech University
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: August 1, 2019 through July 31, 2022 (Extended to July 31, 2024)
Project Period Covered by this Report: August 1, 2021 through July 31,2022
Project Amount: $500,000
RFA: Practical Methods to Analyze and Treat Emerging Contaminants (PFAS) in Solid Waste, Landfills, Wastewater/Leachates, Soils, and Groundwater to Protect Human Health and the Environment (2018) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Drinking Water , Water Quality , Human Health , PFAS Treatment , Water

Objective:

An estimated 61.1 million m3yr-1 of leachate is generated in the United States. Studies suggest that most leachates contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that may pose a risk to human health and/or the environment following release of raw or treated leachate. This project has three primary objectives: 1) optimize strategies for analysis of total PFAS composition and concentrations in field-collected landfill leachate using a combination of analytical techniques; 2) assess sorption, desorption, and diffusion of a select set of PFAS in representative flexible membrane and clay liner materials and evaluate impacts of solution chemistry on these processes; and 3) evaluate the impacts of leachate conditions on the rate and efficacy of total PFAS degradation using ultrasound treatment and determine optimal reactor configuration and operational parameters based on landfill conditions and treatment goals.

Progress Summary:

In Year 3 of the project, the project team achieved the following:

Evaluated solid phase extraction (SPE) and liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) clean-up protocols for analysis of leachate, including spike and recovery evaluations with commercial products, using high resolution mass spectrometry suspect screening approaches
Continued efforts to optimize the total oxidizable precursor assay (TOP) for use on leachate
Initiated efforts to analyze total organic fluorine (TOF) in leachate using combustion ion chromatography (CIC)
Conducted side-by-side diffusion cell experiments evaluating the diffusion of PFAS in a field collected leachate through geomembrane and clay liner materials
Evaluated sorption of PFAS to clay liner materials
Evaluated effective diffusion coefficients of PFAS through clay liner materials (monitoring of geomembrane diffusion experiments is ongoing)
Conducted preliminary experiments evaluating use of sonolysis for treatment of landfill leachate

Future Activities:

The following activities are planned for Year 4 of the project:

Continue optimization of CIC-based approaches for evaluation of TOF in leachate
Continue monitoring diffusion cells with geomembrane materials
Conduct additional diffusion cell with alternate clay liner materials and/or leachate samples
Model PFAS transport through multi-layer landfill liner systems
Process data from sonolysis experiments to evaluate feasibility of this approach for leachate treatment

Journal Articles on this Report : 2 Displayed | Download in RIS Format

Publications Views
Other project views:	All 13 publications	3 publications in selected types	All 3 journal articles

Publications
Type	Citation	Project	Document Sources
Journal Article	Charbonnet J, McDonough C, Xiao F, Swichtenberg T, Cao D, Kaserzon S, Thomas K, Dewapriya P, Place B, Schymanski E. Communicating Confidence of Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Identification via High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY LETTERS 2022;9(6):473-481.	R839670 (2021) R839670 (2022) R839660 (2021)	Full-text from PubMed Abstract from PubMed Full-text: ACS Publications- Full Text HTML Exit Other: ACS Publications - Full Text PDF Exit
Journal Article	Shojaei M, Kumar N, Guelfo J. An integrated approach for determination of total per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Environmental Science & Technology 2022;56(20):14517-14527.	R839670 (2021) R839670 (2022) R839670 (2023) R839670 (Final)	Full-text from PubMed Full-text: ACS Publishing - Full Text HTML Exit Other: ACS Publishing - Full Text PDF Exit

Supplemental Keywords:

PFAS, solid waste, leachate, landfills, sorption

Progress and Final Reports:

Original Abstract

The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.