Electrochemically enhanced adsorption of PFOA and PFOS on multiwalled carbon nanotubes in continuous flow mode

It is important to develop efficient technologies on removal of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) from water due to their wide distribution and potential threat to human health. In this work, a durable and convenient electrosorption device was designed in continuous flow mode to investigate the adsorption of PFOX (X = A and S) on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) from water under electrochemical assistance. The electrosorption experiments were conducted under different influent and electrolyte concentrations, hydraulic retention time (HRT) and electrode distance to optimize the operation. The results showed that the highest removal efficiencies toward both PFOA and PFOS could come up to 90 % at 1 V. Compared with open circuit (OC) adsorption under the same conditions, the removal efficiencies were improved by 4.9 times (PFOA) and 4.2 times (PFOS) respectively. In addition, the MWNTs electrode was found to be reusable. These findings provide an efficient method to remove PFOX from water by electrosorption in continuous flow mode.