19F-MRI measurements for PFAS adsorption and transport in chemically reactive porous media

Abstract

<p>The topic of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is a late-breaking issue due to its high environmental relevance (toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation) and due to the detection of PFAS as contaminants in various environmental compartments including groundwater, surface water and soil. PFAS enter the environment for instance through industrial, agricultural, and house-hold activities. Restricted PFAS like PFOA by the Stockholm Convention 2019 have often been replaced by molecules of the same family with shorter carbon chains, and nowadays around 4000 different molecules of PFAS can be found in the environment. Although PFAS have been manufactured since the 1940s, the fate of these chemicals in soils was not studied until the late 1990s.</p> <p>These studies have shown that the retention of PFAS in soils depends on various factors such as the PFAS type (e.g. molecular structure and carbon chain length), the soil properties (e.g. amount of organic carbon, surface charge), and the pore water (e.g. degree of saturation, pH). Still, the retention – and release – mechanisms of PFAS on soil constituents are not completely elucidated, and a generic model able to predict the transport of PFAS in the subsoil is not available yet.</p> <p>We were already able to demonstrate that magnetic resonance imaging (<sup>19</sup>F - MRI) can be successfully used during PFAS transport experiments [1]. We obtained MRI profiles providing quantitative information of the spatial and temporal distribution of the fluorinated substance inside a non-reactive porous medium, which were then compared with the traditional breakthrough curve (BTC) and numerical simulations to validate the performance of our approach. Our results showed that MRI as a non-invasive and non-destructive instrument is a meaningful tool for the measurement of PFAS inside porous media during flow-through experiments, and therefore for the interpretation as well as the modeling of BTCs compared to common transport experiments only measured with BTCs.</p> <p>In our latest experiments with <sup>19</sup>F – MRI and PFAS, we studied the interactions of PFAS in chemically reactive porous media, which helps us to improve our understanding and modeling capability of PFAS in porous media. These results pave the way for the application of our innovative <sup>19</sup>F – MRI / modeling approach of PFAS fate in natural soil.</p> <p>[1] Fries, E., Courtier-Murias, D., Gil Roca, J., Peyneau, P.-E., Michel, E., and Béchet, B.: 19F-MRI and numerical modeling as a combined method for the measurement and prediction of fluorinated substances (e.g. PFASs) transport in porous media, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-1288, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-1288, 2022</p> <div id="gtx-trans"> <div class="gtx-trans-icon"> </div> </div>