A critical revisit of the electrochemical oxidation of PFASs in water using boron-doped diamond electrodes - Role of sulfate radicals in enhanced kinetics and the overlooked importance of adsorption

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Metadata	Details
Publication Date	2021-04-28
Journal	Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Authors	Mersabel Veciana

Abstract

Presented by: Mersabel Veciana - PhD Student at University of Queensland - Advanced Water Management Centre, [email protected]\n\nCo-authors: J. Bräunig, M.L. Pype, G. Carvalho, J. Keller, P. Ledezma\n\nAbstract: This study investigated the role of sulfate radicals in the degradation of ten per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in water and their adsorption under electrochemical oxidation (EO) using boron-doped diamond electrodes. The effect of sulfate radicals was evaluated for each compound by comparing its removal capacity and kinetic rate constants. Furthermore, a series of current-free experiments were conducted at pH 2 (mimicking EO conditions) to investigate PFASs losses due to sorption. The results demonstrate significant enhancement of the PFASs removal fractions and kinetic rate constants in the presence of sulfate radicals for all tested compounds, except PFDA. Notably however, losses due to sorption ranged from 4% to >99%, indicating that a sizeable fraction of the PFASs in solution were not removed by the EO treatment but by sorption onto the reactor’s surfaces. This often-overlooked phenomenon needs to be considered and characterized to avoid over-estimation of EO and other treatment processes.\n\nBiography: Mersabel is a PhD research scholar from the Advanced Water Management Centre currently researching the implementation of advanced electrochemical oxidation on PFAS treatment. She has also conducted studies on the application of Fenton/Electro-Fenton processes for the treatment of pharmaceutical-containing wastewaters.

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