The demand for accurate assessment of risk to humans and ecosystems from the presence of PFAS compounds has attracted lots of attention. Polymeric equilibrium passive samplers are potential technologies to measure freely dissolved porewater concentrations of bioaccumulating pollutants including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). While much progress has been made and extensively investigated in the field of passive sampling for hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) and metals, the field of passive sampling is still in the early stages of development for PFAS compounds.<br/>The overarching goal of this research is to develop and test a range of functionalized polymeric thin films and polymer-inclusion membranes for use in equilibrium passive sampling of PFAS compounds. To archive this goal, the following objectives have been addressed in this project: 1) development of novel polymeric thin films for equilibrium passive sampling that will be either solid or liquid sorbents embedded in a thin polymer sheet; 2) perform equilibrium partitioning studies with PFAS compounds covering a range of properties and interpret isotherm data based on sorption models; 3) test equilibrium reversibility for the top two choices of polymers and assessing the use of performance reference compounds to quantify the extent of equilibrium; 4) evaluate mechanism of the sorption process.<br/>Four different materials: agarose, PDMS, CA and CTA were used to form polymer base for PFAS compounds analysis. Different parameters were optimized to determine the most suitable experiment conditions for the film formation. The potential passive sampling materials that have been tested fall under 2 categories: 1) standard laboratory polymers not specifically designed for PFAS sorption, and 2) polymers with PFAS aiming functional additives. The base polymers have been successfully formed in the lab experiment with adjustable shape and size. The target PFAS compounds equilibrium partition and transport mechanism evaluations were expected for each synthesized polymer.<br/>In this research, we demonstrate for the first time that a composite polymer can be synthesized that responds to an aqueous concentration of PFAS in water at equilibrium. Thus, conceptually, we can develop an equilibrium passive sampler for PFAS in sediment porewater that is able to respond to porewater concentration

Development of novel functionalized polymeric thin films for equilibrium passive sampling of PFAS compounds in surface and groundwater

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ACS Fall 2022

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