Using foam fractionation to estimate PFAS air-water interface adsorption behaviour at ng/L and µg/L concentrations.

PFAS are biologically recalcitrant compounds that are persistent in the environment and have subsequently contaminated groundwater, landfill leachate and surface water. Due to their persistence and toxicity, there are environmental concentration limits imposed on some PFAS compounds that extend down to a few nanograms per litre and even proposals for reducing these to picogram per litre levels. Since PFAS concentrates at water-air interfaces as a result of their amphiphilic nature, this characteristic is important for the successful modelling and prediction of transport behaviour of PFAS through various systems.

Effect of different co-foaming agents on PFAS removal from the environment by foam fractionation.

Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are recalcitrant, synthetic chemicals that are ubiquitous in the environment because of their widespread use in a variety of consumer and industrial products. PFAS contamination has become an increasing issue in recent years, which needs to be urgently addressed. Foam fractionation is emerging as a potential remediation option that removes PFAS by adsorption to the surface of rising air bubbles which are removed from the system as a foam.

Pickering foams and parameters influencing their characteristics.

Pickering foams are available in many applications and have been continually gaining interest in the last two decades. Pickering foams are multifaceted, and their characteristics are highly dependent on many factors, such as particle size, charge, hydrophobicity and concentration as well as the charge and concentration of surfactants and salts available in the system. A literature review of these individual studies at first might seem confusing and somewhat contradictory, particularly in multi-component systems with particles and surfactants with different charges in the presence of salts.

Effect of selected monovalent salts on surfactant stabilized foams.

Surfactant-stabilized foams have been at the centre of scientific research for over a century due to their ubiquitous applications in different industries. Many of these applications involve inorganic salts either due to their natural presence (e.g.

On the stability of thin films of pure water.

The stability of water films has been the focus of many researchers in the recent decades. Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the stability of these foam films or on the mechanisms responsible for stabilizing water films. This paper examines the reported results on this matter and scrutinizes them based on speciation analysis of the dissolved species and the recent achievements in the adsorption of inorganic ions on the air/water interface.

Surface force at the nano-scale: observation of non-monotonic surface tension and disjoining pressure.

Nano bubbles and films are important in theory and various applications, such as the specific ion effect of bubble coalescence, flotation and porous medium seepage; these rely greatly on the fundamental aspects of extended-DLVO surface forces. However, the origin and validation of the non-DLVO forces are still obscure, especially at the nano scale (1-5 nm). Herein, we report the first determination of the disjoining pressures of aqueous electrolyte nano-films using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.

A quantitative review of the transition salt concentration for inhibiting bubble coalescence.

Some salts have been proven to inhibit bubble coalescence above a certain concentration called the transition concentration. The transition concentration of salts has been investigated and determined by using different techniques. Different mechanisms have also been proposed to explain the stabilizing effect of salts on bubble coalescence.