CCWT’s NSF-backed research will improve drinking water quality and environmental health |
Arjun Venkatesan
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded nine fundamental research projects to develop new strategies to remediate PFAS in the environment, one of which is based at Stony Brook University’s New York State Center for Clean Water Technology (CCWT). PFAS or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are toxic pollutants that are very difficult to treat and that persist and accumulate in soil, water and living organisms, which can lead to adverse health effects.
Last year, the NSF announced a special funding focus on new science and technologies for treating and remediating PFAS to improve and protect public and environmental health, called ERASE PFAS. The extreme chemical stability of PFAS is an attribute that has led to its widespread use in food packaging, non-stick pans, anti-stain fabrics, electronics, fire-fighting foams, and many other commercial applications. However, once PFAS gets into the environment, that stability becomes a problem. The chemicals are very resistant to degradation and largely insensitive to conventional water treatment processes such as municipal drinking water treatment.
With combined funding of more than $ 4.1 million, the new research projects will use a variety of approaches to treating PFAS contamination, whether by trapping the chemicals or breaking their carbon-fluorine bonds to turn PFAS into harmless ones Transform products.
The CCWT project selected for funding – for a total award of US $ 400,655 – is “Understanding the Surfactant Properties of PFAS for Improved Removal by Bubbling Water Treatment Processes,” led by Scientific Associate Professor Arjun K. Venkatesan, the Deputy Director for Drinking Water Initiatives at CCWT, in collaboration with Distinguished Professor Benjamin Hsiao, Department of Chemistry.
“In this project, we propose a technology that uses simple air bubbles to trap PFAS and remove it from the water,” explains Venkatesan. “PFAS tend to accumulate on the surface of the air bubbles, and therefore we will provide the first information about the structure and distribution of these PFAS molecules at the air-water interface (or through advanced characterization techniques (X-ray synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory) Surface of the bubbles). Once we have identified ideal conditions through controlled experimentation that will increase its accumulation on the bubble surface, we will develop a reactor that will produce nano-micro-sized air bubbles to capture and extract PFAS from contaminated water. “
The proposed approach is extremely simple to use and offers great cost benefits to water utilities who want to upgrade their systems to treat PFAS.
Read the full NSF press release
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