A critical review on mitigation strategies for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances from water matrices with special emphasis on techno-economic and life cycle assessment: Current status, knowledge gaps, and future perspectives

Abstract

The widespread detection of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in aqueous environment has emerged as a global concern due to their persistent nature, high stability, and potential toxicity. Thus, in the recent decades, removal of PFAS from water matrices has garnered tremendous attention of researchers to combat this pervasive environmental threat and mitigate the risk imparted by these toxic compounds on living beings and the environment. In this context, this critical review elucidates different technologies based on their removal mechanisms, either separation or degradation, employed for the remediation of PFAS from water matrices. This review also emphasizes on techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) of the discussed technologies for evaluating their practical feasibility before deploying them on the field for remediation of PFAS, which are generally overlooked while comparing different technologies. The strength-weakness-opportunity-threat (SWOT) analysis of discussed technologies is also presented in this article, with the aim to provide insight into underlying opportunities and challenges with these technologies, thus beneficial in electing the best technology for PFAS remediation. This paper also highlights the current challenges, limiting the application of these technologies at the field-scale that necessitate further efforts and can be further translated into plausible future research opportunities. In a nutshell, this paper intends to guide the researchers by presenting a systematic review of different technologies employed for PFAS remediation by critically comparing these technologies through SWOT analysis along with their LCA and TEA, enabling scientists to identify the most effective, sustainable, and economically feasible PFAS remediation technology.