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SUMMARY:Second Year Physical Chemistry Literature Seminar
LOCATION:Chemistry A101
TZID:America/Denver
DTSTART:20240208T160000
UID:2026-05-07-16-51-37@natsci.colostate.edu
DTSTAMP:20260507T165137
Description:About the Seminar: \n\nPer- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PF
 AS) are chemicals characterized by their strong C-F bonds and have widespr
 ead global use in many industrial processes and consumer-based products. P
 FAS are collectively referred to as “forever chemicals” due to their l
 ong lifetime against environmental degradation. As a result of their envir
 onmental persistence\, PFAS become pollutants that contaminate water sourc
 es and pose a threat to human health and wildlife. Current methodologies u
 sed to eliminate PFAS rely on separation processes or extremely harsh degr
 adation methods that require large energy inputs. Thus\, there is an immed
 iate need for a simple method that can degrade these persistent pollutants
 . Houk\, Ditchel and coworkers proposed a simple method to degrade perfluo
 roalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs)–one of the largest classes of PFAS-into
  benign end products. In their study\, they used aqueous sodium hydroxide 
 in a dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solution at 120 °C to degrade PFCAs of var
 ious lengths into fluoride ions and fluorinated and nonfluorinated carbon-
 containing products. Furthermore\, they proposed a PFCA degradation mechan
 ism based on Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations that are consist
 ent with experimental results. This new method of PFCA degradation and its
  mechanism may be generalized to other classes of PFAS and may be implemen
 ted as an effective and practical method to remove PFCAs from water source
 s. 4:00 pm
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