PFAS Cleanup Advances, but Researchers Warn Source Control Is Essential

The chemicals, used for decades in products from nonstick pans to firefighting foams, have been linked to increased risks of fertility challenges, developmental delays, cancer and reduced immune response. Known as forever chemicals, PFAS have strong carbon-fluorine bonds that the environment struggles to break down. They spew from factories, slough off products and enter water with normal use; scientists have found them in everything from human blood to Antarctic snow.

One 2022 report found that 89% of the US population had PFAS in excess of two nanograms per milliliter of blood plasma, a common threshold for potential adverse health effects, and 9% of the population had passed the riskier level of 20 nanograms per milliliter, according to the report. New compounds are still being created and used, and more than 12,000 PFAS exist, while much cleanup research focuses on only a small handful.

Cleansing PFAS-contaminated soil is a project in its infancy, but pulling the chemicals out of water systems can prevent more buildup. Two approaches are to trap or destroy the chemicals. Reverse osmosis, which pushes water through supertight filters, has been found useful in point-of-use cases such as kitchen-sink water filters. Foam fractionation, which generates bubbles that capture PFAS, and methods that ensnare the chemicals in nanothin layers of charged metal are under investigation for larger-scale removal at water treatment facilities, MIT Technology Review reported.

Trapping is imperfect. It leaves PFAS-filled brine that can still end up in the environment if not properly destroyed, an expensive and energy-intensive endeavor. Jack Huang, a professor of crop and soil sciences at the University of Georgia, is working on destruction. He is testing electrochemical degradation, which uses electrodes to break down the bonds that hold PFAS together. The method destroyed more than 90% of PFAS mass in tests and has already been licensed by the engineering consulting firm AECOM, according to the report.

Policy is also a challenge. Alternatives exist, but the report says a push is needed to use them. The EPA's 2010/2015 PFOA Stewardship Program helped slash the release of water-repellent perfluorooctanoic acid by 95%, and Minnesota, Maine and New Mexico have passed bans on PFAS in products such as cookware and dental floss. MIT Technology Review concluded that scientists are making strides toward removing and destroying PFAS, but that it will be all for naught if the tap is not turned off.