Abstract
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are increasingly of interest to drinking water utilities due to state regulations, the release of federal and state health advisories, and public concern. Pilot-scale data were fitted for 16 PFAS species and five commercial-activated carbons using an open-source pore and surface diffusion model that includes an automated parameter-fitting tool. The estimated model parameters are presented, and an uncertainty analysis was evaluated considering the expected temporal variability of influent concentrations. Expected treatment performance differed between two seasons in the pilot phase for the same carbon, which was not captured by modeled uncertainty. However, modeling results can support a utility’s decision to choose activated carbon, and make design and operational decisions that can address changing water production rates and treatment goals. For the utility that undertook this pilot study and their desired treatment goals, granular activated carbon (GAC) was found to be an effective treatment technology for PFAS removal.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
Data reported in this work can be found at https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/epa-sciencehub. Modeling tools used in this work are available at https://github.com/USEPA/Water_Treatment_Models.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank staff at the water utility for their time, providing pilot data and system characteristics used in this modeling effort. The authors acknowledge Levi Haupert and David Wahman for assistance in converting the AdDesignS software from Fortran, and Brian Crone and Craig Patterson for helpful review and discussions.
Disclaimer
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through its Office of Research and Development funded the research described herein. It has been subjected to the Agency’s review and has been approved for publication. Note that approval does not signify that the contents necessarily reflect the views of the Agency. Any mention of trade names, products, or services does not imply an endorsement by the US Government or EPA. The EPA does not endorse any commercial products, services, or enterprises. The contractors’ role did not include establishing Agency policy.
References
Aly, Y. H., C. Liu, D. P. McInnis, B. A. Lyon, J. Hatton, M. McCarty, W. A. Arnold, K. D. Pennell, and M. F. Simcik. 2018. “In situ remediation method for enhanced sorption of perfluoro-alkyl substances onto Ottawa sand.” J. Environ. Eng. 144 (9): 04018086. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EE.1943-7870.0001418.
Carter, M. C., W. J. Weber Jr., and K. P. Olmstead. 1992. “Effects of background dissolved organic matter on TCE adsorption by GAC.” JAWWA 84 (8): 81–91. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.1992.tb07415.x.
Corwin, C. J., and R. S. Summers. 2011. “Adsorption and desorption of trace organic contaminants from granular activated carbon adsorbers after intermittent loading and throughout backwash cycles.” Water Res. 45 (2): 417–426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2010.08.039.
Corwin, C. J., and R. S. Summers. 2012. “Controlling trace organic contaminants with GAC adsorption.” J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 104 (1): E36–E47. https://doi.org/10.5942/jawwa.2012.104.0004.
Crittenden, J. C., N. J. Hutzler, D. G. Geyer, J. L. Oravitz, and G. Hand. 1986. “Transport of organic compounds with saturated groundwater flow: Model development and parameter sensitivity.” Water Resour. Res. 22 (3): 271–284. https://doi.org/10.1029/WR022i003p00271.
Crittenden, J. C., R. R. Trussell, D. W. Hand, K. J. Howe, and G. Tchobanoglous. 2012. MWH’s water treatment: Principles and design. 3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Crone, B. C., T. F. Speth, D. G. Wahman, S. J. Smith, G. Abulikemu, E. J. Kleiner, and J. G. Pressman. 2019. “Occurrence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in source water and treatment in drinking water.” Crit. Rev. Environ. Sci. Technol. 49 (24): 2359–2396. https://doi.org/10.1080/10643389.2019.1614848.
Denning, P. C., and B. I. Dvorak. 2008. “Maximizing sorbent life: Comparison of columns in parallel, lead-lag series, and bypass blending.” Water Environ. Res. 81 (2): 206–216. https://doi.org/10.2175/106143008X325674.
Dickenson, E., and C. Higgins. 2016. Treatment mitigation strategies for poly-and perfluoroalkyl substances. Denver, CO: Water Research Foundation.
Hayduk, W., and H. Laudie. 1974. “Prediction of diffusion coefficients for non electrolytes in dilute aqueous solutions.” AIChE J. 20 (3): 611–615. https://doi.org/10.1002/aic.690200329.
Hopkins, Z. R., M. Sun, J. R. DeWitt, and D. R. U. Knappe. 2018. “Recently detected drinking water contaminants: GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl ether acids.” JAWWA 110 (7): 13–28. https://doi.org/10.1002/awwa.1073.
Jarvie, M. E., D. W. Hand, S. Bhuvendralingam, J. C. Crittenden, and D. R. Hokanson. 2005. “Simulating the performance of fixed-bed granular activated carbon adsorbers: Removal of synthetic organic chemicals in the presence of background organic matter.” Water Res. 39 (11): 2407–2421. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2005.04.023.
Jones, E., T. Oliphant, and P. Peterson. 2001. “SciPy: Open source scientific tools for python.” Accessed November 30, 2018. http://www.scipy.org/.
Kempisty, D. M. 2014. “Adsorption of volatile and perfluorinated compounds from groundwaters using granular activated carbon.” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Univ. of Colorado.
Knappe, D. R. U., Y. Matsui, V. L. Snoeyink, P. Roche, M. J. Prados, and M. M. Bourbigot. 1998. “Predicting the capacity of powered activated carbon for trace organic compounds in natural waters.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 32 (11): 1694–1698. https://doi.org/10.1021/es970833y.
Knappe, D. R. U., V. L. Snoeyink, P. Roche, M. J. Prados, and M.-M. Bourbigot. 1999. “Atrazine removal by preloaded GAC.” J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 91 (10): 97–109. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.1999.tb08719.x.
Kucharzyk, K. H., R. Darlington, M. Benotti, R. Deeb, and E. Hawley. 2017. “Novel treatment technologies for PFAS compounds: A critical review.” J. Environ. Manage. 204 (Part 2): 757. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.08.016.
Magnuson, M. L., and T. F. Speth. 2005. “Quantitative structure-property relationship for enhancing predictions of synthetic organic chemical removal from drinking water by granular activated carbon.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 39 (19): 7706–7711. https://doi.org/10.1021/es0508018.
Mertz, K. A., F. Gobin, D. W. Hand, D. R. Hokanson, and J. C. Crittenden. 1999. Manual: Adsorption design software for windows (AdDesignS™). Houghton, MI: Michigan Technological Univ.
Mittal, A., L. Kurup, and J. Mittal. 2007. “Freundlich and Langmuir adsorption isotherms and kinetics for the removal of Tartrazine from aqueous solutions using hen feathers.” J. Hazard. Mater. 146 (1–2): 243–248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2006.12.012.
Munz, C., J. Walther, B. Bunther, M. Boller, and R. Bland. 1990. “Evaluating layered upflow carbon adsorption for the removal of trace organic contaminants.” JAWWA 82 (3): 63–76. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.1990.tb06937.x.
Park, M., S. Wu, I. J. Lopez, J. Y. Chang, T. Karanfil, and S. A. Snyder. 2020. “Adsorption of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in groundwater by granular activated carbons: Roles of hydrophobicity of PFAS and carbon characteristics.” Water Res. 170 (Mar): 115364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2019.115364.
Patterson, C., J. Burkhardt, D. Schupp, E. R. Krishnan, S. Dyment, S. Merritt, L. Zintek, and D. Kleinmaier. 2019. “Effectiveness of point-of-use/point-of-entry systems to remove per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances from drinking water.” AWWA Water Sci. 1 (2): e1131. https://doi.org/10.1002/aws2.1131.
Roberts, P., P. Cornel, and R. S. Summers. 1985. “External mass-transfer rate in fixed-bed adsorption.” J. Environ. Eng. 111 (6): 891–905. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9372(1985)111:6(891).
Schaefer, C. E., C. Andaya, A. Maizel, and C. P. Higgins. 2019. “Assessing continued electrochemical treatment of groundwater impacted by aqueous film-forming foams.” J. Environ. Eng. 145 (12): 06019007. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EE.1943-7870.0001605.
Sontheimer, H., J. C. Crittenden, and R. S. Summers. 1988. Activated carbon for water treatment. Karlsruhe, Germany: DVGW-Forschungsstelle, Engler-Bunte-Institut, Universitat Karlsruhe (TH).
Speth, T. F. 1991. “Evaluating capacities of GAC preloaded with natural water.” J. Environ. Eng. 117 (1): 66–79. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9372(1991)117:1(66).
Summers, R. S., B. Haist, J. Koehler, J. Ritz, G. Zimmer, and H. Sontheimer. 1989. “The influence of background organic matter on GAC adsorption.” J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 81 (5): 66–74. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.1989.tb03207.x.
Summers, R. S., and P. V. Roberts. 1988a. “Activated carbon adsorption of humic substances: I. Heterodisperse mixtures and desorption.” J. Colloid Interface Sci. 122 (2): 367–381. https://doi.org/10.1016/0021-9797(88)90372-4.
Summers, R. S., and P. V. Roberts. 1988b. “Activated carbon adsorption of humic substances: II. Size exclusion and electrostatic interactions.” J. Colloid Interface Sci. 122 (2): 382–397. https://doi.org/10.1016/0021-9797(88)90373-6.
Sun, M., E. Arevalo, M. Strynar, A. Lindstrom, M. Richardson, B. Kearns, A. Pickett, C. Smith, and D. R. Knappe. 2016. “Legacy and emerging perfluoroalkyl substances are important drinking water contaminants in the Cape Fear River Watershed of North Carolina.” Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 3 (12): 415–419. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.estlett.6b00398.
USEPA. 2016. Drinking water health advisory for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). Washington, DC: Office of Water Health and Ecological Criteria Division.
USEPA. 2018. Fact sheet: Draft toxicity assessments from GenX chemicals and PFBS.” Accessed February 28, 2020. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-11/documents/factsheet_pfbs-genx-toxicity_values_11.14.2018.pdf.
USEPA. 2019. “Drinking water treatability database.” Accessed February 28, 2020. https://www.epa.gov/water-research/drinking-water-treatability-database-tdb.
USEPA. 2020. “EPA announces proposed decision to regulate PFOA and PFOS in drinking water.” Accessed June 12, 2020. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-proposed-decision-regulate-pfoa-and-pfos-drinking-water.
Wang, B., L. S. Lee, C. Wei, H. Fu, S. Zheng, Z. Xu, and D. Zhu. 2016. “Covalent triazine-based framework: A promising adsorbent for removal of perfluoroalkyl acids from aqueous solution.” Environ. Pollut. 216 (Sep): 884–892. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2016.06.062.
Xiao, X., B. A. Ulrich, B. Chen, and C. P. Higgins. 2017. “Sorption of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) relevant to aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF)-impacted groundwater by Biochar and activated carbon.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 51 (11): 6351–6432. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b00970.
Zimmer, G., B. Haist, and H. Sontheimer. 1987. “The influence of preadsorption of organic matter on the adsorption behavior of chlorinated hydrocarbons.” In Proc., Annual AWWA Conf. Denver: American Water Works Association.
USEPA. 2021. US environmental protection agency, water treatment models. San Francisco: GitHub.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 148 • Issue 3 • March 2022
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 4, 2021
Accepted: Oct 14, 2021
Published online: Dec 16, 2021
Published in print: Mar 1, 2022
Discussion open until: May 16, 2022
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
Cited by
- Amanda Alcaide Francisco Fukumoto, José Augusto Alves Pimenta, Elisa Yoko Hirooka, Emília Kiyomi Kuroda, Pesticides removal from water using activated carbons and carbon nanotubes, Environmental Technology, 10.1080/09593330.2022.2112979, (1-23), (2022).