Division/Committee: [ENVR] Division of Environmental Chemistry

Per- and poly fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are linked to many adverse health effects in humans and other mammals. PFAS have been detected in drinking water supplies, wastewater, household dust, and soil, and most of them are persistent in the environment and are not amenable or conventional chemical treatment, limiting their remediation options. EPAs recent drinking water health advisory lowers the safe drinking levels to 0.004, and 0.02 ppt for PFOA and PFOS, respectively, is intended to respond to widespread drinking water contamination, ubiquitous population-level exposure, and toxicological and epidemiological evidence of adverse health effects. These low drinking water regulatory standards raised the difficulties of treatment technologies to achieve these set goals and the accurate detection of current analytical techniques pf PFAS. This symposium will bring together research, and technology perspectives to address PFAS contamination and opportunities to share lessons learned about PFAS, and we invite papers on: Studies on the effectiveness of conventional adsorbent and filtration technologies such as reverse osmosis or nanofiltration on surface and groundwater, which have various degrees of geochemical and co-contaminant competition; the role of a treatment train, combining conventional sorbents and engineered filtration with more innovative and emerging remediation solutions for PFAS; developing new and novel technologies for the destruction of PFAS, including thermal, chemical, mechanicochemical, and supercritical water oxidation approaches; focus is also given to the advancement of analytical measurement techniques; and the fate and transport of PFAS in the environment.

Dr. Endalkachew Sahle-Demessie

Senior Chemical Engineeri, U,S Environmental Protection Agency

Appearances