Pocorobba Jack C, Braiman Mark S
Department of Chemistry, Syracuse University, 111 College Place, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA.
Chemistry Department, North Carolina State University, 208 Dabney Hall, 2620 Yarbrough Dr., Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 1;15(1):22177. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-06632-3.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been decomposed photochemically by using manganese dioxide (MnO) as oxidant, sulfuric acid (HSO) as solvent, and bromine (Br) as photocatalyst, to produce several smaller organofluorine compounds, and ultimately a yield of up to 4% of the fluorine as HF. These fluorinated intermediates and product have been characterized with F NMR spectroscopy. The carbon from the PFAS was converted to CO with a detected yield of up to 10-15%. The reagents and apparatus to carry out this degradation are inexpensive and readily obtained, especially because NaBr can be substituted for Br as the sole source of bromine. A similar set of end products were observed with either perfluorooctanoic acid or polytetrafluoroethylene, demonstrating this process can possibly be used to degrade a variety of PFAS. Our results demonstrate the ability to degrade PFAS in a simple, controlled manner at lower temperatures and using less expensive reagents than current industrial methods.
全氟和多氟烷基物质（PFAS）已通过使用二氧化锰（MnO）作为氧化剂、硫酸（H₂SO₄）作为溶剂以及溴（Br）作为光催化剂进行光化学分解，生成了几种较小的有机氟化合物，最终以高达4%的氟产率生成了氟化氢（HF）。这些氟化中间体和产物已通过¹⁹F核磁共振光谱进行了表征。PFAS中的碳被转化为CO₂，检测到的产率高达10 - 15%。进行这种降解的试剂和仪器价格低廉且易于获得，特别是因为溴化钠（NaBr）可以替代Br作为唯一的溴源。用全氟辛酸或聚四氟乙烯观察到了类似的一组最终产物，表明该过程可能可用于降解多种PFAS。我们的结果表明，与当前的工业方法相比，能够在较低温度下以简单、可控的方式降解PFAS，且使用的试剂成本更低。
