Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, known as PFOS, is a suspected carcinogen found in global drinking water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set a health advisory at 70 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFOS in drinking water. Michigan issued a state of emergency for Parchment, one of the towns afflicted with an excess of this chemical in their drinking water. Rising concerns and inadequate solutions, led to the belief that electron beam treatment may be a cost effective and efficient way to augment current remediation strategies of PFOS in water and soil. This thesis explores possible and verified processes for treatment and collection of samples for PFOS removal. Our research using electron beam technology, has led to a breakdown of greater than 99% of PFOS levels in sand samples as well as a greater than 48.6% PFOS level breakdown for water samples without laboratory additives. For these tests relatively high doses of radiation, 500 and 2000 kGy, were used and special care was taken to ensure the purity of samples. Preliminary tests and other research papers point to PFOS removal when spiked samples, those created with a known PFOS level contamination, are introduced to electron beam irradiation. This research adds upon previous work and hopes to introduce insight on the topic including single run high dosing, additive testing, and condensation recovery.
