Electrochemical degradation of PFAS contaminated water with boron-doped diamond anodes

Abstract

Since its production concentrations of the manmade chemical compounds PFAS found in the environment has increased significantly. The properties created by incorporating these chemicals, make them attractive for industrial usage and for many consumer products. These chemicals bioaccumulate and are very persistent. With known adverse health effects, its treatment to prevent release in the environment has become more and more important. To remediate PFAS in aquatic environments, such as groundwater and surface water helps protect our drinking water sources and reduces exposure to these harmful compounds. With this in mind the treatment technology, electrochemical oxidation of PFAS is applied here in various water matrices to study the destruction of these compounds. Through galvanostatic EC experiments, water types in 10L continuously stirred reactor tanks, where pumped through an electrochemical cell consisting of boron-doped diamond electrodes at a constant current of either 30 or 40 A for a duration of either 3 or 6 hours. Samples were processed and then analysed for 29 PFAS through HPLC-MS/MS. Remediation of these compounds proved to be less efficient than in other studies.