Remediation of PFAS contaminated sites by foam fractionation
Foam fractionation is a water treatment technology that has been used since as early as the 1940s to separate surface-active compounds from different wastewaters and solutions. Recently, the increased adoption of foam fractionation in the bioprocessing industry has led to a deeper understanding of the underlying phenomena leading to a plethora of new applications being realised in the water treatment industry. In particular, the use of foam fractionation to treat PFAS contaminated water appears to have great potential due to the high surface activity of most PFAS of environmental concern. During this seminar I will present an introduction to foam fractionation and discuss my research so far into the viability of foam fractionation as a treatment technology for PFAS contaminated groundwater and surface water. I will also discuss a mechanism by which less surface-active short chain PFAS such as PFBA and PFBS can be removed by foam fractionation.
Tom Buckley is a 2nd year PhD student at the School of Chemical Engineering, UQ.