Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 22 (2015) 542547

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Ultrasonics Sonochemistry
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ultson

Enhanced sonochemical degradation of peruorooctanoic acid by sulfate

ions
Jo-Chen Lin a, Shang-Lien Lo a,, Ching-Yao Hu b, Yu-Chi Lee a, Jeff Kuo c
a

Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Taiwan University, 71, Chou-Shan Road, Taipei 106, Taiwan, ROC
School of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, 250, Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei 110, Taiwan, ROC
c
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, California State University, Fullerton, CA, USA
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 9 July 2013
Received in revised form 8 June 2014
Accepted 9 June 2014
Available online 16 June 2014
Keywords:
Peruorooctanoic acid
Sulfate ion
Ultrasonic
Sonochemical
Deuorination
Surface tension

a b s t r a c t
This study investigated the effects of sulfate ions on the decomposition of peruorooctanoic acid (PFOA)
by ultrasonic (US) irradiation at various pHs, sulfate doses, powers and temperatures. The removal of
PFOA was augmented with an increased sulfate ion concentration, with PFOA being almost completely
decomposed in 90 min at 25 C with a sulfate dose of 117 mM. The two major mechanisms in the sulfate-assisted sonochemical system are the direct destruction of PFOA by cavitation and the indirect
destruction of PFOA by sulfate free radicals. The decomposition of PFOA followed pseudo-rst-order
kinetics and was not inuenced by pH. The reaction rate constants decreased with increases in temperature due to decreases in the surface tension of the solution.
2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Peruorooctanoic acid (C7F15COOH, PFOA) is widely used in
industry. It is used as a surface treatment agent in photolithography, an emulsifying agent in polymer synthesis, a re retardant,
and is one component of paper coating. It is very stable in the natural environment due to its strong CF bonds (110 kcal/mol) [13].
PFOA has been detected in aquatic environments and animals, and
has been demonstrated to exhibit bioaccumulative and biomagnificative effects [4]. Therefore, there is interest in developing methods for PFOA removal.
It is currently known that PFOA can be degraded by photo-catalytic and Fenton oxidation [5], as well as by hydrothermal treatment. However, these treatment methods are largely inefcient,
expensive and energy demanding. For example, hydrothermal
treatment requires that the temperature be maintained at subcritical (100350 C) or supercritical (>350 C) levels. While other
methods exist to successfully remove other organic pollutants,
such as conventional advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), they
generally utilize relatively inactive hydroxyl radicals and are inefcient in the destruction of PFOA [6]. On the other hand, sonochemical treatment exploits pyrolytic cleavages to destroy
Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 223625373; fax: +886 223928821.
E-mail address: sllo@ntu.edu.tw (S.-L. Lo).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultsonch.2014.06.006
1350-4177/ 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

organic pollutants and is an emerging and effective method which

can be used effectively to remove PFOA specically [68].
Ultrasonic (US) treatment operates through cavitation, which
not only produces plasma in water, thus degrading molecules by
pyrolysis, but also produces free radicals and other reactive species
that can enhance the number of collisions between free radicals
and pollutants. US irradiation has been shown to enhance the degradation rate of various pollutants including phenol, dyes and
pharmaceutical compounds [912]. Sonochemical degradation of
organics can be further enhanced by the addition of additives such
as photocatalytic compounds [5], exfoliated graphite [10], ozone
[13], H2O2 [14], elemental iron [15], carbonate [11], persulfate
[16] and sulfate [17].
Sulfate radical is strongly oxidizing (E0 = 2.43 V) [18] and is
highly effective in degrading organic pollutants in water [19]. In
comparison to hydroxyl radicals (E0 = 2.8 V), sulfate radicals have
a higher selectivity and effectiveness in oxidizing target chemical
compounds because of their more electrophilic nature [9].
Recent studies investigating the decomposition of organic pollutants by persulfate oxidation with microwave, ultrasound, photochemical and pulsed electrical discharge treatment have found
sulfate radicals to be primarily responsible for the oxidation and
destruction of those organic pollutants [5,2022].
Therefore, on account of the need for a more time and energy
efcient method of PFOA removal, this study explored the effect

J.-C. Lin et al. / Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 22 (2015) 542547

of the presence of sulfate radicals on the decomposition rate of

PFOA undergoing US treatment. The effects of sulfate dose, US
power, pH, temperature and surface tension were investigated.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
The peruorooctanoic acid (PFOA, C7F15COOH, 96% purity) used
in this study was purchased from Aldrich. The peruoroheptanoic
acid (PFHpA, C6F13COOH, 98%), peruoropentanoic acid (PFPeA, C4F9COOH, 97%), and heptaurobutyric acid (PFBA, C3F7COOH, 99%)
were purchased from Alfa Aesar. The undecauorohexanoic acid
(PFHeA, C5F11COOH, 97%), pentauoropropionic acid (PFPrA, C2F5COOH, 97%) were purchased from Fluka, and the triuoroacetic
acid (TFA, CF3COOH) was purchased from RiedeldeHaen. The
sodium sulfate (Na2SO4) was purchased from J.T. Baker. All these
chemicals were of analytical grade. All solutions were prepared
with Millipore Milli-Q distilled water.
2.2. Reaction procedures
Schematics of the experimental setup are presented in Fig. 1.
Sonochemical treatment was carried out under various conditions
using a constant solution volume of 300 mL and an ultrasonic
probe (BRANSON 2000LPt, 150 W, 40 kHz, USA). The temperature
of the reaction solution was kept constant at 25, 35 or 45 1 C
in a temperature-controlled water bath. When sulfate was added,
the initial pH of the solution was 4.3. For the experiments investigating pH, 1N H2SO4 and 1N NaOH were used to adjust the pH to
7.3 and 11.1. US irradiation was applied for 120 min. Samples were
withdrawn at pre-specied time intervals and ltered before
analysis.

543

70% acetonitrile and 30% 9 mM NaOH and 100 mM H3BO4. The ow

rate was 0.3 mL/min and the injection volume was 50 ll [21].
Fluoride and sulfate ion concentrations were measured with an
ion chromatograph unit (ICS-3000, Dionex) which consisted of an
automatic sample injector, a degasser, a pump, a guard column
(Ion Pac As4a Guard Column, Dionex), a separation column (Ion
Pac As4a Analytical Column, HPLC system, Dionex), and a conductivity detector with a suppressor device. The mobile phase was an
aqueous solution containing NaHCO3 (1.7 mM) and Na2CO3
(1.8 mM). The ow rate was 2 mL/min. The deuorination ratio
(R) was calculated as follows:

C F
 100
C 0  15

where CF is the concentration of uoride in mM, C0 is the initial

concentration of PFOA in mM, and the value of 15 represents the
number of uorine atoms contained in one PFOA molecule. The
limit of detection (LODs) using 50 mL samples, based on a signalto-noise (S/N) ratio of 3, was 1 mg/L for peruorocarboxylic acids
(PFCAs).
Changes in surface tension of the sample solutions accompanying temperature changes of 1560 C were determined by a ring/
plate tensiometer (LAUDA, TD1C, Germany) following the standard
method.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Degradation of PFOA
US degradation (150 W, 40 kHz) of 0.12 mM PFOA with sulfate
(25 mM) and without sulfate at 25 C and a pH of 4.3 was conducted for 120 min. The results are shown in Fig. 2. The percentage
of PFOA removed was calculated by

C 0  C
 100
C0

2.3. Analytical procedures

PFOA removal%

PFCs (peruorocarbons) were analyzed using a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) (Dionex, Ultimate 3000,
USA) equipped with a conductivity detector and an anion selfregenerating suppressor (Asrs 300, USA). The mobile phase was

where C0 is the initial PFOA concentration in mM and C is the PFOA

concentration in mM. As shown in Fig. 2, sulfate addition to the US

Fig. 1. Experimental setup schematic.

Fig. 2. Effects of sulfate addition on PFOA removal ([PFOA]0 = 0.12 mM; [sulfate]0 = 0 mM, 25 mM; initial pH = 4.3; T = 25 C; power = 150 W).

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J.-C. Lin et al. / Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 22 (2015) 542547

system resulted in a greater removal of PFOA than US alone. No degradation was detected when sulfate was used alone without US.
After 120 min of US irradiation, 46% of the PFOA was removed
in the experiment without sulfate addition and 99% was removed
in the experiment with sulfate addition. In this experiment PFOA
removal was achieved through two reactions: The direct reaction
and the indirect reaction. The direct reaction proceeds through
cavitation which encompasses the production and destruction of
bubbles (Eq. (3)). As PFOA is an anionic surfactant [28] and has a
strong polarity [29] its migration to the bubble-water interface
decreases the interfacial tension, thus making for its preferable
adsorption. Thus, following the production of bubbles, PFOA readily adsorbs onto their surfaces, and then is destroyed when the
bubbles burst.
ultrasound

1.1
1

C/Co

0.6
0.5
0.4

The indirect reaction proceeds through the formation of sulfate

ion. While the formation of sulfate and hydroxyl radicals by US
irradiation in the presence of persulfate ions has been studied previously [17], the experiments in this study explored the addition of
sulfate to a US irradiation system. However, both US irradiated sulfate and persulfate can both produce SO4 and SO2
simulta4
neously [23]. The sulfate ion assisted indirect reaction that these
species proceed through is presented below (Eqs. (4)(6)).

0.2

ultrasound

ultrasound



OH SO2
4 ! OH SO4

pH 11.1

0.7

0.3

H2 O1 ! OH H

pH 7.3

0.8

H2 O1 ! H2 OPlasmas

pH 4.3

0.9

0.1
0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90 100 110 120

Time (min)
Fig. 4. Effects of initial pH on PFOA removal ([PFOA]0 = 0.12 mM; [sulfate]0 = 46 mM; initial pH = 4.3, 7.3, 11.1; T = 25 C; power = 150 W).

Fig. 3 shows the PFOA degradation in the US system at 500 and

150 W. PFOA was degraded more quickly at 500 W than at 150 W.
However, the US instrument used in this study had a xed frequency of 40 kHz.

at 25 C and for 120 min. The pH values investigated were 4.3,

7.3 and 11.1. All the PFOA was degraded in 90 min at pH 4.3, while
it took 120 min for the reaction to run to completion at both pH 7.3
and 11.1.
PFOA concentrations decreased exponentially with US time
irrespective of pH (Fig 4). This nding implies that PFOA degradation followed a pseudo-rst-order kinetic model [24], which can be
described by Eq. (11):

3.2. Effects of solution pH

ln

The effects of pH on PFOA degradation by sulfate- assisted US

irradiation (150 W, 40 kHz) are shown in Fig 4. The experiments
were carried out with an initial PFOA concentration of 0.12 mM

where C0 is the initial concentration (mM), C is the concentration

(mM) at reaction time t (min) and k is the rate constant (min1).
At 25 C, the reaction rates were relatively similar and equal to
3.13  102, 3.04  102 and 2.52  102 min1 for pH 4.3, 7.3
and 11.1, respectively. For the case of initial pH of 4.3, the pH of
the solution increased from 4.3 to 5.1 after US for 120 min.
The reported pKa values of PFOA range from 1.0 to 3.8 [25] and
the pH of the PFOA solutions in this investigation ranged from 4.3
to 11.1. Therefore, as the pH conditions investigated in this study
were all higher than the highest reported pKa value, the vast
majority of the PFOA molecules in each experimental condition
were in their deprotonated states. Thus, pH had little effect on
the chemistry of this study and therefore no appreciable effect
on reaction rates. This nding supports that of previous studies
which also failed to detect any signicant effects of pH on decomposition by US [2,6].
However, there are two reasons why the highest pH condition
investigated in this study (11.1) had a slightly slower PFOA decomposition rate than the other conditions. First, sulfate radicals may
react with OH to form O which has a lower oxidation potential,
thus decreasing the PFOA decomposition rate [26]. Second, in our
experiment, we used NaOH to adjust the pH of the solution, which
created more OH- in solution. The slower decomposition rate at pH
11.1 than that at pH 4.3 may also be due to the greater abundance
of ions present under the alkaline conditions in this study. As PFOA
is inherently acidic, no additional reagent was used to titrate the
pH when the pH condition was 4.3. However, since the pH of the

ultrasound

2

SO
4 PFOA ! F CO2 SO4

5
6

Fig. 3. Effects of US power on PFOA removal ([PFOA]0 = 0.12 mM; [sulfate]0 = 46 mM; initial pH = 4.3; T = 25 C; power = 150 W).

C
kt
C0

11

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J.-C. Lin et al. / Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 22 (2015) 542547

solution without adjustment was 4.3, to adjust the solution to 11.1

we added NaOH, thus increasing the concentration of ions in solution. The higher ionic concentration interferes with PFOAs ability
to adsorb to the bubble-water interface [24]. Consequently, the initial pH of 4.3 was considered optimal and used in all the subsequent experiments in this study.

radical is an effective oxidant for degrading PFOA, even at room

temperature (25 C). Fluoride concentrations increased with
decreases in PFOA concentrations (shown in Figs. 5 and 6). These
data imply that the PFOA molecules were decomposed into smaller
peruorocarbon compounds.
3.4. Effects of solution temperature

3.3. Effects of sulfate concentration

The effects of various sulfate doses (0117 mM) on PFOA degradation with US irradiation at 25 C are shown in Fig. 5 The PFOA
decomposition rates increased signicantly with sulfate dose.
Beginning with a PFOA concentration of 0.12 mM, 46% of the PFOA
was decomposed after 120 min with US alone (without sulfate
addition), 95% of the PFOA was decomposed after 120 min with
an addition of 25 mM sulfate, 100% of the PFOA was decomposed
after 110 min with an addition of 46 mM sulfate, and 100% of the
PFOA was decomposed after 80 min with an addition of 117 mM
sulfate (Fig. 5). These results imply that under US irradiation, more
sulfate radicals are generated with higher sulfate doses which
results in faster PFOA degradation.
In this study, each experiment exhibited a fast and signicant
declining trend in the concentration of PFOA irrespective of the
sulfate dose. As this trend was observed in the experiment utilizing
US alone, it is evident that the direct reaction had a strong contribution to the declining trends seen under all the conditions
explored in this study. While increases in sulfate dose effectively
enhanced the overall speed of the reaction, within the rst
60 min of the reaction SO2
appeared to inhibit the degradation
4
of PFOA. This is likely due to the decreased surface tension which
accompanies increases in sulfate dose. This is further discussed
in Section 3.5.
The extent of PFOA deuorination was determined based on the
amount of uoride ions that were released into the solution. After
120 min of undergoing sulfate-assisted US reaction, deuorination
efciencies were 9%, 56% and 99.8% for sulfate additions of 0, 46
and 117 mM, respectively (Fig. 6). These results imply that sulfate

To evaluate the effects of temperature on the decomposition of

PFOA, three temperatures (25, 35, and 45 C) were applied to the
sulfate-assisted US treatment system. As shown in Fig. 7 and
Fig. 8, the addition of sulfate did improve the degradation of PFOA
under all the temperatures studied. The highest decomposition
rates and deuorination efciencies were observed at 25 C. Those
observed at 35 C and 45 C were relatively similar with both being
lower than those at 25 C. These results imply that the sulfateassisted US treatment works best under ambient temperatures
(25 C), while higher temperatures (35 or 45 C) have an adverse
effect irrespective of sulfate addition.
In a previous study it was observed that the removal of PFOA by
persulfate increased with increases in temperature [16]. However,
there is reason to believe that both the direct and indirect mechanisms were inhibited by this temperature increase in this study
investigating the removal of PFOA in a US treatment system with
the addition of sulfate. In the US alone system, in which the direct
reaction was the only mechanism, the removal of PFOA also
decreased with increases in temperature. This demonstrates the
above inference that the direct mechanism was inhibited. This
result can be partially attributed to the lower surface tension at
higher temperatures (discussed in the next section).
Furthermore, some temperatures are more suitable for oxidation assisted US reaction kinetics than others, thus implying that
temperature would also affect the indirect reaction investigated
in this study. For example, one study by Liu (2012) reported that
radical scavenging at high temperatures may inhibit the reaction
between oxidizing species and PFOA by lowering the radical

100

1.2
0 mM

90

5 mM
1

25mM
117 mM

0.6

0.4

Defluorinaition (%)

C/Co

70

46 mM

0.8

0 mM
5 mM
10 mM
25 mM
46 mM
117 mM

80

10 mM

60
50
40
30
20

0.2

10
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90 100 110 120

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90 100 110 120

Time (min)

Time (min)
Fig. 5. Effects of sulfate concentration on PFOA removal ([PFOA]0 = 0.12 mM;
[sulfate]0 = 0 to 117 mM; initial pH = 4.3; T = 25 C; power = 150 W).

Fig. 6. Extent of deuorination in sulfate-assisted sonochemical treatment

([PFOA]0 = 0.12 mM; [sulfate]0 = 0 to 117 mM; initial pH = 4.3; T = 25 C;
power = 150 W).

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J.-C. Lin et al. / Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 22 (2015) 542547

1
0.9
0.8
0.7

C/Co

0.6
25 (0 mM sulfate)

0.5

35 (0 mM sulfate)
45 (0 mM sulfate)

0.4

25 (46 mM sulfate)

0.3

35 (46 mM sulfate)

PFOA / Sulfate Solution Surface tension

(dyne/cm)

61

45 (46 mM sulfate)

59
57
55
53
51
49
47
45

0.2

10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65
Temperature ( )

0.1
0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90 100 110 120

Fig. 9. Surface tension vs temperature of a solution containing sulfate and PFOA.

([PFOA]0 = 0.12 mM; [sulfate]0 = 46 mM; initial pH = 4.3; T = 15 C to 60 C).

Time (min)

100
25 (46 mM sulfate)

90

35 (46 mM sulfate)
45 (46 mM sulfate)

80

25 (0 mM sulfate)

Defluorinaition (%)

70

35 (0 mM sulfate)
45 (0 mM sulfate)

60
50

PFOA / Sulfate Solution Surface tension

(dyne/cm)

80
Fig. 7. The decomposition of PFOA in sonochemical treatment at different
temperatures with sulfate (46 mM) and without sulfate (0 mM). ([PFOA]0 = 0.12 mM; [sulfate]0 = 0 and 46 mM; initial pH = 4.3; T = 25, 35, 45 C; power = 150 W).

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

40

0
30

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120

Sulfate concentration (mM)

Fig. 10. Surface tension vs sulfate concentration. ([PFOA]0 = 0.12 mM; [sulfate]0 = 46 mM; initial pH = 4.3; T = 25 C).

20
10
0
0

10

20

30

40

50 60 70
Time (min)

80

90 100 110 120

Fig. 8. Extent of deuorination of PFOA in sonochemical treatment at different

temperatures with sulfate (46 mM) and without sulfate (0 mM) ([PFOA]0 = 0.12 mM; [sulfate]0 = 0 and 46 mM; initial pH = 4.3; T = 25, 35, 45 C; power = 150 W).

utilization efciency [16]. Thus, there is reason to believe that

higher temperatures inhibit both the direct and indirect reactions.

3.5. Effects of solution surface tension

Surfactant molecules tend to move to the waterair interface
because this phenomenon can decrease the surface energy [27].

The higher the surface tension of a solution, the greater the tendency of the surfactant molecules to move to the interface. PFOA
is an anionic surfactant [28] and has a strong polarity [29]. In addition, it contains hydrophilic and lipophilic groups (i.e., having the
nature of a surface active agent) that can decrease the interfacial
tension and get preferably adsorbed onto the water-bubble interface. Therefore, the greater the surface tension of the solution,
the higher the mass transfer rate of PFOA to the bubble interface.
While the higher surface tension also makes the bubbles less likely
to collapse, the results of this study demonstrate that the greater
tendency of PFOA to migrate to the bubble-water interface overcomes this decreased tendency to collapse yielding an overall
greater degradation rate.
Fig. 9 shows that increasing the temperature resulted in a rapid
decrease in the surface tension of a solution containing PFOA
(0.12 mM) and sulfate (46 mM). The lower surface tension at

J.-C. Lin et al. / Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 22 (2015) 542547

higher temperatures leads to the decreased adsorption of PFOA to

the water-bubble interface, thus partially explaining the results
shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 10 shows that the surface tensions of the solutions
decreased with increases in sulfate dose. Thus, decreased surface
tension is likely a contributing factor to the inhibition of the direct
reaction observed following sulfate addition. This helps to explain
why the reaction rate during the rst 60 min was slower following
the increase in sulfate dose from 0 mM to either 5 or 10 mM (as
shown in Fig. 5). However, the PFOA decomposition rates were
higher when the sulfate doses were increased from 10 to
117 mM (as shown in Fig. 5). This is likely due to the leveling off
of the decreases in surface tension in this range (as shown in
Fig. 10) and the increases in the rate of sulfate radical production.

4. Conclusion
This study investigated the effects of pH, sulfate dose, US power,
and temperature on PFOA degradation by using sulfate-assisted
sonochemical treatment. The rate of PFOA decomposition and the
extent of deuorination depend heavily on sulfate dose.
In this study, the optimal conditions for PFOA removal were a
sulfate dose of 117 mM, a pH of 4.3, and a temperature of 25 C.
Under these conditions, an initial concentration of 0.12 mM PFOA
was degraded within 90 min and achieved a deuorination of
99.8%.
The initial solution pH values (4.3, 7.3, 11.1) had an insignicant
effect on PFOA decomposition. Out of the three temperature conditions explored in this study (25, 35 and 45 C), the best decomposition efciency was observed at the lowest temperature (25 C).
The decreased decomposition efciency at higher temperatures
may be partially attributed to the lower solution surface tension,
however there may also be other contributing factors that warrant
future investigation.
These experimental results suggest that the presence of sulfate
radicals in a US system assist in the degradation of PFOA. This
study demonstrated that PFOA decomposition can be effectively
achieved through sulfate-assisted sonochemical treatment at room
temperature. This technology also has great potential for the
removal of other pollutants such as pharmaceuticals and personal
care products.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the National Science Council
(NSC) of Taiwan for their nancial support. This study was partially
supported by project number NSC 100-2221-E-002-043.
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