Project Info
Understanding chemical degradation of perfluorochemical substances
Shubham Vyas | bwu@mines.edu
Perfluorochemical substances (PFASs) are widely utilized in several applications, however, these manmade chemicals are one of the most recalcitrant molecules that are contaminating our environment. Fundamental questions about how to facilitate the degradation of these compounds to clean water sources are still unanswered.
Goal of this project is:
Understanding how metal cations can facilitate oxidative degradation of PFASs?
Computationally predicting the efficiency of metal catalyzed oxidation of PFASs
Experimentally validating computationally predictions
More Information
Talk to the professor.
Summar of the research grant at the NSF website, https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1710079&HistoricalAwards=false
Recent papers: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.8b00122
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jpca.7b08895
Grand Engineering Challenge: Provide access to clean water
Student Preparation
Qualifications
Should be in the sophomore year or above in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering.
Time Commitment
40 hours/month
Skills/Techniques Gained
Chemical computations, analytical solution preparation, experiment planning, executing oxidative degradation experiments, NMR and possibly synthesizing new catalysts.
Mentoring Plan
The student will work with 1-2 graduate students in the group.
One-on-one meeting every week and participating in the group meeting.