<p>The Defluorinator project was created to remove PFOA from water systems. This can be done by breaking the carbon fluorine bond in PFOA which will cause the chemical to break down. Two enzymes haloacid and fluoroacetate dehalogenase were chosen to break the fluorine bonds in PFOA. Plasmid was put into E. coli.</p>
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<p>To determine if this sample was capable of defluorinating PFOA we measured the pH and optical density in 6 different cultures: E.Coli with engineered FaCD + PFOA, E. coli with engineered HaCD + PFOA, NEB5a E.coli + PFOA, and wild type P. putida + PFOA without plasmid. With two controls of engineered FaCD in e.coli, engineered HaCD in E.coli, and just LB broth. pH level and optical density were measured at several time points over 3 days or 54 hours (12:00 PM, 3:00 PM, 6:00 PM, 9:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 3:00 PM, 6:00 PM, 9:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 3:00 PM, 6:00 PM).</p>
<p>pH testing was done to determine the amount of fluorine ions that were present. As PFOA was degraded, there is a byproduct of free floating hydrogen and fluorine ions. The fluoride ions will bond with free hydrogen ions creating hydrofluoric acid (HF), an acidic compound. The more HF that is being created, the more H+ in solutions we will be measuring, which means a lower pH level. The less free H+ in a system, the more basic it would be. As pH decreases, the amount of PFOA decreases.</p>
