The per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are highly toxic, bioaccumulative, and chemical resistant in nature. These substances are used as a precursor for the manufacturing of aqueous fire fighting foam, non-stick frypan, and oil repellent coatings. Among 9500 different PFAS compounds, short-chain PFAS, in particular GenX, is relatively new and has been already found to affect health adversely. Because of a fairly recent introduction in the industry, the information on surfactant characteristics of GenX is limited. Therefore, in this work, we employed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to conduct a fundamental study to examine the interaction of GenX with polymers in regimes above and below critical micelle concentration (CMC). We examine a series of five polymers involving homopolymers and triblock co-polymers of different hydrophobicity. The main objective of this study is to answer the following questions: (i) Effect of polymer hydrophobicity on GenX self-assembly; (ii) Effect of surfactants on polymer conformation; and (iii) The interaction mechanism between polymer and GenX. Such understanding of polymer/surfactant mixture can be applied to various cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Along with interesting physiochemical characteristics, elucidating the interaction of GenX with different polymers is vital for the efficient designing of polymer-based membranes to filter out short-chain PFAS.

Self-assembly of GenX/Polymer in aqueous solution

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.