Destroying the indestructible: Photocatalytic degradation of forever chemicals
| dc.contributor.author | Woon, Willow | |
| dc.contributor.author | Ryane, B. | |
| dc.contributor.author | McIndoe, J. S. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-04-20T21:37:17Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-04-20T21:37:17Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2026 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are manmade organic pollutants often called 'forever chemicals' due to their extreme durability and resistance to breakdown. PFAS have been used in consumer products for over 70 years and bioaccumulate in humans where they are linked to several cancers and hormone disruptions. Some methods of PFAS degradation have been previously developed including combustion and reverse osmosis, but these technologies have a very high energy cost and don't provide insight into the potentially harmful breakdown products created in the process. Titanium dioxide catalysts are an environmentally friendly technology previously applied to other organic pollutants but not yet to PFAS. To observe breakdown trends in real time, a common PFAS molecule was treated with a titanium dioxide photocatalyst and UV light. The kinetic data showed that it did not break down randomly but instead followed a controlled, stepwise mechanism that removed one carbon at a time. This experimental data was used to build a predictive model that can estimate long-term degradation without running additional experiments. This model predicted that complete degradation would require 11 continuous days of the same treatment conditions to degrade to small, simpler molecules. Future work will incorporate additional experimental data to improve the predictive accuracy of the model. This project represents an important step towards an affordable, low-energy method for removing forever chemicals from the environment. | |
| dc.description.reviewstatus | Reviewed | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Undergraduate | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA) | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/23640 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | University of Victoria | |
| dc.subject | PFAS | |
| dc.subject | forever chemicals | |
| dc.subject | catalysis | |
| dc.subject | mass spectrometry | |
| dc.subject | water | |
| dc.subject | water treatment | |
| dc.subject | Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA) | |
| dc.subject.department | Department of Chemistry | |
| dc.title | Destroying the indestructible: Photocatalytic degradation of forever chemicals | |
| dc.type | Poster |