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Novel Approaches to Separate and Destroy PFAS in Residual Waste Streams
Citation:
Butzlaff, A. Novel Approaches to Separate and Destroy PFAS in Residual Waste Streams. Innovations in Environmental Science: Panel Discussions with EPA Early Career Researchers, Cincinnati, OH, February 08, 2024.
Impact/Purpose:
To share planned research with the scientific community on novel removal and destruction technologies for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in complex residual streams.
Description:
This sub-product provides an overview on our work with novel technologies to separate and destroy PFAS in residual waste streams (e.g., incinerator scrubber water, reverse osmosis retentate). This presentation focuses on a stepwise process where adsorbents first separate PFAS and then electrochemical oxidation destroys PFAS captured by the adsorbents. In contrast to traditional adsorbents (such as activated carbon and ion exchange resin), we review novel adsorbents that can be tailored to remove target molecules (i.e., PFAS). These novel adsorbents have shown promising PFAS adsorption performance in simple streams (e.g., groundwater, surface water), but here we investigate their performance in residual waste streams, which provide complex matrices. The PFAS removed by the adsorbents produces a concentrated waste stream that must be treated prior to disposal. Here, we propose to use electrochemical oxidation to treat the concentrated PFAS stream resulting from high-performance adsorbents.