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In this TETRA project, the main (innovation) objective was to compare several PFAS treatment and gain insight into the inherent removal potential of each individual technique. A key aspect in these analysis is the fact that the performance of each of these techniques was evaluated on the same industrial effluent. During these analysis four PFAS compounds were selected (i.e. PFBA, PFHxA, PFOA and PFBS). Effective degradation of these compounds was investigated via advanced oxidation (AO) and reduction (AR) techniques. From the results, it can be concluded that ozonation (as AO), as a stand-alone technique and in combination with H2O2 is insufficiently effective to degrade the selected PFAS (both short- and long chain). In this case, up to 37% removal was observed for the long chain PFOA, but the short chains remained unaffected. Ultraviolet/sulfite iodide (as AR) was found to be the most effective way of removing the carboxylated PFAS (PFCA), with removal efficiencies of up to 99%. Here, PFBS, as the only sulfonated PFAS (PFSA), was removed for only 7%. Consequently, a downstream treatment is required to degrade this compound as well. To exploit the maximum potential of this technique, effective pretreatment (in this case O3/H2O2) proved crucial. This pretreatment resulted in removing interfering matrix compounds from the industrial wastewater before subjecting it to the AR technique. Without pretreatment, efficiencies of only 23-25% (factor four difference) were achieved for the PFCAs. As an individual technique, electrocoagulation-flotation is unable to remove short chain compounds (<5% removal), but the efficiency increases with chain length. For long chains (starting from C6-7), this technique achieves removal efficiencies of at least 56 to 93% (except for PFHpA). Granular activated carbon and ion exchange resins were found to be able to remove both short- and long chain PFAS. Both techniques showed an increased affinity for PFSAs compared to PFCAs. In case of reverse osmosis, a PFAS-free permeate was obtained for both short- and long chains PFAS. The shortest chains that were investigated (C4) were detected in considerably higher concentrations (relative to the influent) in the obtained permeate after nanofiltration. Besides obtaining a concentrate of reduced volume, the PFAS load was concentrated in this stream. A downstream technique to treat this concentrate is necessary to effectively degrade these compounds. Within the project, UV/SO3+I was screened as the main option for this purpose. During a first screening removal efficiencies of 23-28% were achieved for the PFCA compounds (without further optimisation). In case of PFBS the efficiency remained below 10%.
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