Perfluorinated Compounds at the Air-Water Interface

Abstract

Perfluorinated compounds are employed in numerous industrial applications including water repellency in textiles. Use of these compounds has led to their presence in the environment. Perfluorinated compounds are highly hydrophobic and bioaccumulate rapidly, leading to their presence in the aquatic food chain. As a result, methods of environmental remediation are under consideration. Few measurements of surface pressure isotherms for perfluorinated compounds have been made. Yet knowledge of surface coverage by these compounds could lend insight to processes being developed to decompose perfluorinated surfactants. Using a Langmuir-Blodgett trough with film balance, surface pressure isotherms are collected for perfluorinated carboxylic acids and other perfluorinated compounds at the air-water interface. Preliminary investigations reveal that perfluorinated analogues of saturated alkanes behave quite differently.