Degradation and Separation of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) from Drinking Water Sources

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a perfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS) has been identified by the US EPA as detrimental to human health. Its consumption is related to thyroid disease, and increased kidney and testicular cancer. PFAS is estimated to be present in the blood of almost all residents of the United States (USGS Report, 2022). PFOA is ubiquitous across many consumer and household items including non-stick and stain-resistant products and in fact, West Virginia waterbodies record 101-349 ng/L PFOA. This project intends to use membrane technology to remove PFOA from the water as well as microwave technology to degrade it and combine these technologies in the future to obtain a one-step separation process. To address the mitigation of ultra-low PFOA levels (ppb to ppt) in drinking water systems, a pre-concentration step of adsorbing the PFOA on zeolite is currently being explored. The PFOA-loaded zeolite is then exposed to microwave irradiation to degrade it into smaller chain fluoro compounds. Successful completion of these steps will be followed by embedding the zeolite on a membrane surface to accomplish the one-step degradation and separation process.