Study on Adsorption Behavior of the Perfluorooctanoic Acid and its Potential of Generation from Precursor during Biological Treatment Process in Wastewater Treatment Plants

Main objective of this study was to examine the behavior of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) during biological treatment process at WWTP by doing three laboratory-scale studies including (a) a batch adsorption experiment of PFOA onto activated sludge, (b) a semi-batch experiment to treat wastewater containing PFOA with activated sludge, and (c) a batch biodegradation experiment of 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-Perfluoro-1-decanol (8:2 FTOH) which is one of the PFOA precursors. Fresh and acclimated activated sludge were used in this study. As a result; 1) PFOA loading with synthetic wastewater into semi-batch reactor resulted in increased amount of PFOA attatched with activated sludge in the reactor. 2) At the end of the experiment with PFOA loading with real wastewater, the sum of the total amount of PFOA found in effluent and in the reactor was as much as 198% of the sum of the total amount in influent. 3) On the 8th day of 8:2 FTOH biodegradation experiment, PFOA was identified as much as 2.9% of the orginal molar concentration.