Abstract
The “forever chemicals”, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have become a threat to public health and environment because of their toxicity and bioaccumulation. Addressing this critical issue, we develop a state-of-the-art nanocomposite adsorbent by covalently grafting amine functional groups onto graphene oxide (GO) surfaces and making them magnetic with iron-oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles. This process results in the creation of magnetic amine-functionalized graphene oxide (MAGO). The efficiency of MAGO is evaluated in the adsorptive removal of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS), and perfluorobutane sulfonate (PFBS) as model long-chain and short-chain PFAS under different experimental conditions. Our findings reveal that MAGO achieves remarkable removal rates—exceeding 95% for long-chain PFAS and 85% for short-chain PFAS within just 30 minutes—demonstrating not only rapid kinetics but also a resilience across pH levels from 4 to 7. These results are indicative of the synergistic effects of GO and amine groups, harnessing both electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions to adsorb PFAS molecules. MAGO not only shows potent pollutant removal but also has impressive regeneration capabilities. Moreover, we demonstrate a novel liquid phase extraction method for PFAS detection, utilizing a colored methylene blue-PFAS complex for spectrophotometric analysis.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1698-1713 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Environmental Science: Advances |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 13 2024 |
Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was partially supported by the Bureau of Reclamation (BoR) under the Grant of R21AC10418-00. We thank Dr Galizia at OU for providing access to the UV-vis and FT-IR spectrometers and Seyed Mostafa Tabatabaei at OU for measuring the zeta potential.