ArticleACS omega2025
Perfluorobutanesulfonate (PFBS) Treatment by Electrical Discharge Plasma: Reaction Mechanisms and Degradation Pathways.
Article in ACS omega, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
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Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Electrical discharge plasmas rapidly degrade short-chain (SC) per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the presence of sacrificial surfactants. These surfactants facilitate the transport of PFAS to the plasma-liquid interface through electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions, where PFAS and surfactants are ultimately degraded. This study investigates the degradation of perfluorobutanesulfonate (PFBS) by nonthermal plasma, both in the absence and presence of quaternary alkyl trimethylammonium surfactants: octyl-, dodecyl-, and hexadecyl trimethylammonium bromide (C8TAB, C12TAB, and C16TAB, respectively). Advanced analytical techniques, including targeted, suspect, and nontargeted liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), gas chromatography (GC-MS headspace), and ion chromatography (IC), were employed to identify the degradation byproducts of PFBS and the surfactants. Suspect and nontargeted analyses (NTA) revealed the formation of shorter-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs), products from H/F and OH/F exchange reactions, fluorinated ketones, fluorinated alcohols, unsaturated fluorinated compounds, and shorter-chain perfluorosulfonic acids (PFSAs); however, the last has been ascribed to contamination in the PFBS reagent. Notably, the degradation of PFBS, both in the absence and presence of surfactants, produced a nearly identical set of byproducts. Based on these newly identified byproducts, a series of degradation pathways has been proposed, involving solvated electrons and OH radicals as the primary reactive species. This study provides critical insights into the complex mechanisms and pathways of PFBS degradation during nonthermal plasma treatment. The findings have significant implications for optimizing plasma technologies and other PFAS treatment methods, with the proposed pathways expected to be relevant for PFAS degradation by technologies that utilize oxidative and nonoxidative species.
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.