Since the advent of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as a type of multifunctional porous materials, significant efforts have been made to exploit their applications in a variety of fields. Their potentials in concentrating and degrading recalcitrant environmental pollutants have aroused heavy interests recently owing to their high porosity and tunable photocatalytic properties. Herein, we investigated the performance of a photocatalytic titanium-based MOF in degrading per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water. The MOF displayed near complete removal of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in 24 h under the irradiation of a mercury lamp and showed remarkable stability over three cycles of PFOA degradation. The dominant reactive species such as hydrated electrons were identified using quenching study and direct electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements. PFOA was degraded following two mechanisms widely proposed in the literature: the chain shortening and H/F exchange. Detailed degradation pathways were further illustrated by Density-Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. The results will be discussed in detail during the presentation.

Photocatalytic degradation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) by metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)

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ACS Fall 2022

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