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Molecular tuning of copolymers for separation of PFAS published in Advanced Functional Materials!

Congrats to our team for a recently accepted paper on exploring TEMPO-based copolymers for PFAS capture, led by Kwiyong Kim and Paola Baldaguez Medina!

Our work was recently published in Advanced Functional Materials (early view): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adfm.202004635, and demonstrates how tuning polymer structure can enhance affinity for electrochemical separations, while optimizing regeneration efficiency. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are particularly challenging contaminants due to their prevalence, and strong chemical persistence. In this work, we demonstrate that radical-based polymers can be designed to selectively capture and release these compounds, and at the same time, integrate them with boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrodes for reactive degradation of PFAS within the same step. Our work had significant contributions from Johannes Elbert, Emmanuel Kayiwa, and with collaboration from Profs. Roland Cusick and Yujie Men, as part of a joint National Science Foundation project.