Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of chemicals that have become environmental pollutants of emerging concern. These compounds are highly persistent and toxic, and can bioaccumulate in human body, which makes their remediation essential. While multiple analytical instrumental methods, including chromatography coupled with mass spectroscopy exist for accurate and sensitive detection of PFAS, they suffer from high instrument costs and the need for an advanced laboratory with highly trained personnel. Spectroscopic techniques are generally fast, simple, and inexpensive approaches to determine the concentration of target analytes. However, the major issue with spectroscopic analysis of PFAS is the lack of efficient extraction and pre-concentration methods to enhance the detection resolution. Adsorption based methods have proven to be highly effective for PFAS separation/extraction from water resources, especially when carbonaceous materials are used as adsorbents. Graphene oxide (GO) is a two-dimensional carbonaceous nanomaterial with a hydrophobic carbon network and hydrophilic functional groups, which make it an ideal candidate for PFAS adsorption/extraction. In this work, we present a simple and fast adsorption method based on GO for spectroscopic analysis of PFAS in water samples. Reduced-GO is used to adsorb and extract pentadecafluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS), and perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS) as model long-chain and short-chain PFAS from water samples. The effect of different conditions such as pH, ionic strength, extraction time, and competing ions on the adsorption of PFAS is studied.

Graphene oxide-based nanomaterials for adsorption of PFAS compounds in water samples

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ACS Fall 2022

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