Affiliation:
1. School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University 1 , Corvallis, Oregon 97331
2. Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University 2 , Aarhus C 8000, Denmark
Abstract
Over the past few decades, the public recognition of the prevalence of certain classes of pollutants, such as perfluoroalkyl substances and nanoplastics, within the environment, has sparked growing concerns over their potential impact on environmental and human health. Within both environmental and biological systems, the adsorption and structural organization of pollutants at aqueous interfaces can greatly impact the chemical reactivity and transformation. Experimentally probing chemical behavior at interfaces can often pose a problem due to bulk solvated molecules convoluting molecular signatures from interfacial molecules. To solve this problem, there exist interface-specific nonlinear spectroscopy techniques that can directly probe both macroscopic planar interfaces and nanoplastic interfaces in aqueous environments. These techniques can provide essential information such as chemical adsorption, structure, and reactivity at interfaces. In this perspective, these techniques are presented with obvious advantages for studying the chemical properties of pollutants adsorbed to environmental and biological interfaces.
Funder
National Science Foundation
Lundbeck Foundation
Novo Nordisk Fonden
HORIZON EUROPE Reforming and enhancing the European Research and Innovation system
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Materials Science,Biomaterials,General Chemistry