Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a diverse class of synthetic fluorinated organic substances that have been used in numerous industrial and commercial applications since the 1950s.¹⁰⁵ Due to the extensive utilization of PFAS and subsequent release into the environment, a wide variety of these substances have been identified in air,¹⁰⁶ water,¹⁰⁷ and even breast milk.¹⁰⁸ In addition, most PFAS are resistant to conventional water treatment methods^109-111 and can escape filtration/adsorption techniques.^112-114 To address this problem, Dr. Reza’s group has developed several hydrophobic DES, which enable water-based separations.^115-120 Aiming to perform a rational selection of the most suitable DES to extract PFAS from water, participants interested in this project will use Conductor like Solvents from Molecular Screening (COSMO) to evaluate sigma surface, sigma profile, and sigma (chemical) potential. These sigma profiles will then be used to find thermodynamic properties of adsorption including activity co-efficient, enthalpy of interaction, Gibbs free energy, and excess entropy. Participants will then use these results to determine which DES show the highest selectivity towards PFAS and the findings using extractions from water and subsequent analysis by established chromatographic methods.

Dr. Toufiq Reza, Florida Tech.