Adsorber Charge Dominates over Hydrophobic or Fluorophilic Functionalization in Influencing Adsorption of PFCA onto Polystyrene Resins

Abstract A systematic series of industrial‐relevant polystyrene‐based anion exchange resins that are functionalized with hydro‐ or fluorocarbon chains are compared regarding their adsorption behavior toward perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCA) in respect to their charge, chain length, and type of chain....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Florian Junge, Philipp Wittwer, Thomas Sommerfeld, Lennart Gehrenkemper, Christian Zoister, Philip Nickl, Matthias Koch, Björn Meermann, Rainer Haag
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley-VCH 2024-11-01
Series:Advanced Materials Interfaces
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.202400199
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Abstract A systematic series of industrial‐relevant polystyrene‐based anion exchange resins that are functionalized with hydro‐ or fluorocarbon chains are compared regarding their adsorption behavior toward perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCA) in respect to their charge, chain length, and type of chain. The results clearly show the dominance of electrostatic interactions in the adsorption process as uncharged adsorber materials showed no adsorption at all. In contrast, the charged adsorber materials showed in general a PFCA removal of 80% to 30% over the experiment depending on effluent fraction. Unexpectedly, for perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA) the highest removal rate is found with consistently >90%. Despite observing significant benefits in the adsorption of PFCA for fluoroalkylated adsorbers in comparison to their non‐fluorinated counterparts, this effect of fluoroalkylation is comparatively small and can not be clearly attributed to fluorophilic interactions between the fluoroalkyl chains. These findings help clarifying that the introduction of fluorocarbon moieties in adsorber materials is not necessary in order to remove fluorocarbon molecules from the environment.
ISSN:2196-7350