Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID NJ-2025-Zhao

Surface Engineered MXene-Based Electronic Sensors for Rapid, Sensitive, and Selective Detection of PFAS in Water and Air

Institute: New Jersey
USGS Grant Number:
Year Established: 2025 Start Date: 2026-08-01 End Date: 2029-07-31
Total Federal Funds: $308,972 Total Non-Federal Funds: $310,660

Principal Investigators: Mengqiang Zhao

Project Summary: PFAS are currently the most important contaminants of emerging concern due to the prevalent presence in the environment and suspected toxicological effects. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a simple, yet sensitive detection method that would allow the potentially affected communities and water/air monitoring personnel to rapidly verify the presence of PFAS and their concentrations. Here, we propose to develop surface engineered MXene-based electronic devices for rapid, sensitive, and selective detection of PFAS in water and air. A quartz crystal microbalance will be used to evaluate the adsorption behavior of PFAS on surface-engineered MXenes. Sensing performance of the as-fabricated PFAS electronic sensors will be systematically evaluated to determine their response time, sensitivity, selectivity, and durability. A prototype portable system will further be developed for field demonstration of the developed PFAS sensor, contributing to the increasing demand for in-home or onsite water and air quality monitoring.