ChemSec warns of ‘tidal wave’ of Pfas production to feed AI demand

ChemSec’s survey found nearly all of the 10 biggest manufacturers of Pfas had plans to increase production at sites in Europe, Asia and North America. Anne-Sofie Bäckar, the executive director of ChemSec, said: “These companies’ expansion plans show that unless governments and regulators insist on a rapid phaseout, we will face a new tidal wave of forever chemicals.” Opponents warned that increased production risks undermining nascent moves to restrict Pfas in Europe, the UK and parts of the US.

Many companies frame their investments around the “AI revolution,” because Pfas play a role in semiconductor production and next-generation data center cooling systems. Japan-headquartered Daikin said it was launching a “datacentre hub” to meet demand and promised to “maintain and expand our top share in the industry by expanding sales of existing fluorine products and introducing new products.” The French multinational Arkema was expanding its refrigerant offering with a new $60m, or £44m, production unit in Kentucky, which it said “will enable us to follow the rapid expansion of datacenters’ cooling needs.” The US Pfas producer Chemours was expanding to meet demand from “advanced datacenters and AI hardware,” saying its “innovative liquid cooling solutions” lower the energy, water, space, maintenance and investment costs of data centers. Critics have said Chemours, recently ordered to pay $450m to settle a lawsuit over Pfas discharges, downplays the chemicals’ toxicity and climate impact.

Other companies increasing production were Japanese multinational AGC, Chinese conglomerate Dongyue, India-based chemicals giant Gujarat Fluorochemicals, Russian Pfas producer HaloPolymer, Mexico’s Orbia Fluor & Energy Materials, US-based fluorinated gases producer Solstice and Belgian multinational Syensqo. Producers also cited Pfas coatings and binders for lithium-ion batteries used in EVs, laptops and phones as a parallel growth area. Gujarat Fluorochemicals chief executive Bir Kapoor recently identified batteries as one of several “sunrise sectors,” alongside data centers, semiconductors and green hydrogen. “There is a tremendous growth opportunity there,” he said. The only clear exceptions were the Swiss company Archroma, which was switching to marketing Pfas-free alternatives, and the German giant BASF, which has said it will exit Pfas production by 2028.

Pfas are used for a new form of data center cooling touted as more water- and energy-efficient. In “two-phase immersion cooling” systems, servers are immersed in a pool of Pfas with a low boiling point. As the hardware gets hot, the fluid boils, drawing heat away as vapor. That vapor rises to a water-cooled condensing coil at the top of the tank, cools back to a liquid state and re-enters the cycle. Pfas also play a crucial role in the fabrication process for semiconductors, another sector booming to meet demand from the AI industry. According to a recent investor note from Danske Bank: “In the world of microchips, these ‘forever chemicals’ are not merely peripheral additives; they are essential ingredients integrated into as many as 1,000 distinct steps at the nanometric level.” Analysts also warned Pfas were “the hidden risk of the AI boom” with “escalating potential for multibillion-euro remediation and litigation liabilities.”

The carbon-fluorine bonds in Pfas are among the strongest in organic chemistry, making them resistant to heat, water and corrosion. That makes them useful for industrial processes and consumer products, but also virtually indestructible in the natural environment. They continue to be recycled through planetary systems, accumulating in air, water and soil, and up the food chain. Although Pfas have existed for less than a century, scientists have warned that their accumulation in the environment has already breached a planetary boundary. The chemicals are thought to contaminate the blood of nearly every living person, and research links them to cancer, liver disease, kidney issues, high cholesterol and birth defects. ChemSec sent finger-prick blood tests to the chief executives of all the European companies in its top 10, encouraging them to test Pfas levels in their own blood and share the results publicly.