Marina Tsianou
University at Buffalo, NY·Chemistry
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are often called "forever chemicals." Their carbon-fluorine chains are so stable chemically and thermally that they make surfaces non-stick, hold firefighting foams together, and refuse to mix with either water or oil. That same stability means that once PFAS reach the environment they resist breaking down, build up in living things, and can harm health.
- Fields
Chemistry
Engineering
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances
forever chemicals
fluorinated surfactants
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Determine how different PFAS molecules compete and self-assemble in water when mixed with one another and with ordinary hydrocarbon surfactants, combining computational modeling with experiments.
- Characterize how PFAS and hydrocarbon surfactants organize and interact at water-air and water-oil interfaces, to inform replacements for aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) used in firefighting.
- Measure and model how PFAS bind to model solid surfaces, addressing both the environmental fate of PFAS and the replacement of PFAS used to render surfaces non-stick.
- Build molecular-scale understanding of how fluorinated surfactants set interfacial properties, supporting optimization of PFAS capture methods such as foam fractionation and aeration.
More about the research
Two practical needs follow: use less PFAS and replace it where possible, and capture what has already been released. Both need molecular-level knowledge of how these molecules arrange themselves in water and at surfaces, which this project sets out to provide.
Why it matters
PFAS contamination of water supplies is a persistent public health concern because these chemicals resist degradation, accumulate in organisms, and may cause adverse health effects. Molecular understanding from this work could support cleaner water by improving sequestration methods such as foam fractionation and aeration, help firefighting foams work with far less fluorinated surfactant, and guide computational evaluation of safer replacement chemicals and of materials designed to capture PFAS.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sarah Wu
University of Idaho, ID·Engineering
Build theoretical and thermodynamic models of liquid-phase plasma discharge in PFAS solutions to quantify energy delivery, plasma–liquid interactions and the generation of hydrated electrons, free electrons held among water molecules.
Hao Chen
New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJ·Chemistry
Develop a "bottom-up" mass spectrometry imaging method that identifies tissue proteins from their peptide fragments rather than as intact proteins, aiming to identify far more proteins per imaging experiment.
Andrew May
Ohio State University, OH·Earth & Environmental Science
Quantify saturation vapor pressure, Henry volatility and acid dissociation constants of PFAS such as PFOA and PFAS-replacing chemicals, to predict how they divide between air, water and particles.
The school
University at Buffalo: 32 labs on PI Pages, $542M a year on research, 316 research doctorates a year.
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