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. 2023 Jul:53:1-10.
doi: 10.1016/j.jwpe.2023.103691.

Polanyi adsorption potential theory for estimating PFAS treatment with granular activated carbon

Jonathan B Burkhardt  1 , Adam Cadwallader  2 , Jonathan G Pressman  3 , Matthew L Magnuson  1 , Antony J Williams  4 , Gabriel Sinclair  5 , Thomas F Speth  1
Affiliations

Polanyi adsorption potential theory for estimating PFAS treatment with granular activated carbon

Jonathan B Burkhardt et al. J Water Process Eng. 2023 Jul.

Abstract

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of chemicals that have gained interest because some PFAS have been shown to have negative health effects and prolonged environmental and biological persistence. Chemicals classified as PFAS have a wide range of chemical moieties that impart widely variable properties, leading to a range of water treatment process efficacies. The Polanyi Potential Adsorption Theory was used to estimate Freundlich isotherm parameters to predict the efficacy of granular activated carbon (GAC) treatment for 428 PFAS chemicals for which the vast majority had no previously published treatment data. This method accounts for the physical/chemical characteristics of the individual PFAS beyond molecular weight or chain length that have previously been employed. From a statistical analysis of available data and model results, many of the 428 PFAS were predicted to be effectively treatable by GAC. Although not directly applicable to full-scale design, the approach demonstrates a systematic method for predicting the effectiveness of GAC where isotherm or column data are not available. This then can be used to prioritize future research.

Keywords: Drinking water; Granular activated carbon; Modeling; PFAS; Treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Log aqueous solubility versus length of carbon chain. Comparison of reported and predicted values for PFCAs (C2–C18) [Experimental references as given in Table 2, Predicted values as referenced in [56,57,63]].
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Parameter estimation results from Hamiltonian Monte Carlo analysis for B and W0.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Estimated volume adsorbed vs adsorption potential/molar volume using estimated solubility values. Historical SOC data in plot recreated from data presented in [32].
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Estimated Freundlich K versus molecular weight (shaded area indicates K≤65(μg/g)(L/μg)1/n. Circles indicate median estimated K per compound, lines reflect 95th percentile credible prediction intervals from HMC data.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.
Estimated Freundlich K versus molecular weight for all included PFAS species (428 compounds).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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