Combined sonochemical and short-wavelength UV degradation of hydrophobic perfluorinated compounds

Kazuhiko Sekiguchi; Takahisa Kudo; Kenshi Sankoda

doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2017.04.002

Combined sonochemical and short-wavelength UV degradation of hydrophobic perfluorinated compounds

Ultrason Sonochem. 2017 Nov:39:87-92. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2017.04.002. Epub 2017 Apr 4.

Authors

Kazuhiko Sekiguchi¹, Takahisa Kudo², Kenshi Sankoda²

Affiliations

¹ Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, 255 Shimo-Okubo, Sakura, Saitama 338-8570, Japan. Electronic address: kseki@mail.saitama-u.ac.jp.
² Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, 255 Shimo-Okubo, Sakura, Saitama 338-8570, Japan.

PMID: 28733017
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2017.04.002

Abstract

Perfluorochemicals (PFCs), which are common in the aquatic environment, are toxic substances that have high chemical and heat resistance because of their strong C-F bonds. We investigated the effect of ultrasonication and short-wavelength UV irradiation on the degradation of perfluorooctane, perfluoropropionic acid, and perfluorooctanoic acid, which are examples of hydrophobic, hydrophilic, and intermediate PFCs, respectively. The results confirmed that ultrasonication was more effective for decomposing hydrophobic PFCs and UV irradiation was more effective for decomposing hydrophilic PFCs. Therefore, defluorination of the degradation intermediates was improved by a combination of ultrasonication and UV irradiation. Our results can be applied to the decomposition treatment of PFCs that have various levels of water solubility in the aquatic environment.

Keywords: Defluorination; Perfluorochemicals; Short-wavelength UV; Ultrasonication.