The key to removing PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” might be found in your fishbowl.
A University of Missouri researcher has discovered a new method to remove so-called “forever chemicals” from drinking water.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are industrial chemicals used in the manufacturing of thousands of products, including cosmetics, carpeting, non-stick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics, firefighting foams, food packaging, and waterproof clothing.
They’re everywhere — the environment, our food, and even in our bodies. Peer-reviewed studies have shown that exposure to PFAS may lead to decreased fertility, developmental delays in children, and increased risk of some cancers. And they take hundreds or even thousands of years to break down.
For roughly the past 10 years, researchers have been looking for ways to remove PFAS from the environment or at least degrade them into harmless, inorganic compounds.
Now, Feng “Frank” Xiao, an associate professor in Mizzou’s College of Engineering, and team have found a simple solution using common tools and materials.
“You don’t need organic solvent or really high temperatures,” Xiao, an expert in degrading PFAS, said. “Just heat the PFAS with granular activated carbon, or GAC.”
GAC is composed of granules of coal, wood, or other carbon-rich materials that have been heated. It is already commonly used to filter a wide range of harmful chemicals from contaminated water or air. Consumers use it to clean household aquariums or filter drinking water, and it can be purchased online for just a few dollars per pound.
In a paper recently published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, Xiao and his team describe how they heated PFAS with common GAC at 572 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, the researchers achieved 90% mineralization of the PFAS, breaking the forever chemicals down into harmless, inorganic fluorine.
Before now, reaching this level of mineralization required temperatures in excess of 1292 degrees Fahrenheit, high pressure, or solvents. Xiao’s method is much more cost-effective and sustainable, as GAC is inexpensive and can be reheated again and again.
Potential applications
The key to Xiao’s innovation is the combination of GAC and heat.
“Once GAC is involved, the thermal degradation of PFAS occurs much faster, and the mineralization is more intense,” Xiao said. “It’s not an expensive process, compared to reverse osmosis, and it can be done at local scale with a regular furnace.”
The discovery represents a significant breakthrough in managing PFAS-containing solid wastes, biosolids, and spent adsorbent media that are major concerns to farmers and communities.
“In the Midwest, we use a lot of herbicides and give animals a lot of pharmaceuticals,” Xiao said. “These substances can contain high amounts of PFAS. Through this new removal method, we can drastically reduce the compounds’ presence in our lives.”
Xiao chose Mizzou for the opportunities he has to collaborate with other leading researchers and for the quality of the scholarship of undergraduate and graduate students.
“I teach environmental courses, and the students really care about the environment. They care about the water quality, and they care about our ecosystem,” Xiao said.
Xiao communicates to those students his passion for practical research and the opportunities they have to create a better world through engineering.
“The real-world application of this discovery is that we can effectively and efficiently remove forever chemicals and other contaminants from our water,” he said. “This is the technology we need.”
Reference: “New Insights into Thermal Degradation Products of Long-Chain Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) and Their Mineralization Enhancement Using Additives” by Runze Sun, Ali Alinezhad, Mohammednoor Altarawneh, Mohamed Ateia, Jens Blotevogel, Jiamin Mai, Ravi Naidu, Joseph Pignatello, Anthony Rappe, Xuejia Zhang and Feng Xiao, 3 December 2024, Environmental Science & Technology.
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.4c05782
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19 Comments
Great, this will affect what? 0.01% of PFAS leaked into the environment?
We need regulation and bans NOW
This is not true. I worked for a company that tried removing benzene from ground water with this process. And even though they said it was working. I saw with my own eyes the rainbow residue left by the recycling water. So I think it is a scam.
You are correct..I’m in Orange Texas and the water has been poisoned for years..EPA ignored my complaints since 2020…and 2018..
I thought a simple way to break them down was discovered two years ago!
Have they started using it yet?
Benzene is not a PFAS/PFOS chemical.
It’s impossible to heat all effluent to those temperatures, the energy cost would bankrupt any nation attempting it. This is promising but is not the solution for mass contamination.
Get this done.
trumps and musky won’t. We the People, the sane must keep Americs the contender it has always been.
Get this done.
trumps and musky won’t.
We the People, the sane must keep America the contenders of freedom we’ve always been.
keep your libtarded, beta-cuck thoghts to yourself. this is MAGA country
Trump is doing it
when will u ever quit being miserable
it is your type of negative energy which is harming out planet the most … stop being childish too
In around a month, Trump has signed the US out of the Paris Agreement, cancelled all USAID programs (which were providing untold help and diplomatic relations, around our world) and allowed an unelected billionaire unprecented access (that is almost certainly illegal) access to the sensitive financial information of every US citizen, as well as access to the details of trillions of dollars of US payments.
He has ended all DEI programs, threatened numerous countries with tarriffs, made illegal threats to “buy” Gaza (which is not for sale) and to invade Canada, Greenland and other places. He is now trying to shut down the Department of Education.
Surely, anyone who believes that these are “positive” actions, is actually being “childish” themselves; or at very least; denying reality, or not being honest with themselves?
As I see it; what you’re expressing is actually the negative outlook. If US actions did not affect anyone else, the rest of the world could turn our backs and say “what can we do; US citizens voted for Trump”.
However, US actions DO have an international impact.
What actually has made the US the “great” place, that it actually, already was?
Isn’t the US known for
:
– a very noble Constitution
– tolerance of individuality and diversity
– acceptance of legal immigration
– responsible use of the US, great natural resources and varied climate.
Trump is trying to disrespect and destroy those qualities and attributes.
If my country’s experience is replicated: Trump will ensure that China and other nations take over the aid programs, that will no longer be provided by the US. All those diplomatic ties will go elsewhere and leave the US a mean, cruel, isolated swamp.
Is that really being “positive”??
All because you want to act like a spoiled child and flaunt your perversions instead of doing the job you were hired to do.
Does this breakdown pfas in the body? No…
Then may you burn also. We will continue to rise as you stay in your muck.
breaking the forever chemicals down into harmless, inorganic fluorine.
Also flourine:
highly reactive, pale yellow gas with a pungent odor, considered the most electronegative element on the periodic table; it is highly toxic and readily reacts with most other elements
All appointees are unelected, all bureaucrats are unelected, the Federal Reserve is not even a govt agency and control our banks. USAID is a scam, spending billions to push western leftist ideology and destabilize foreign govts any actual “aid” will be paid by a different branch! $43-million to build one small gas station in Afghanistan? Tens of Millions to lgbt groups in Macedonia, Serbia, Uganda and Tanzania? Tens of millions to US & foreign media outlets? $2-million to teach Moroccans how to make pottery (they already know, it’s a big industry there) HOW is any of that aid?
The DOE is about 40 years old, education system and standards have collapsed in that time! The money will and should go directly to the states! Do you honestly believe state & local schools can’t function without DC bureaucrats? DEI initiatives are implemented in a highly discriminatory way. Students accepted to med school despite low grades and against the objections of staff, med students who can’t pass a basic medical proficiency test four years later!! NO, thank you. There is too much fraud, waste and corruption, too much empowering of mediocrity.
I live in Australia, where a marine conservation organisation, which has partners in seven countries, has immediately lost its funding, that had come from USAID.
By your opposition to funding of LGBTIQ+ groups, it sounds as though you are personally prejudiced against those people?
USAID provides a vast array of world wide aid, including life saving ante natal care in the poorest countries. That has all, abruptly and unprecedentedly ceased.
Closing the US Department of Education is reminiscent of Germany’s 1930’s leader’s ‘ideals’. He, like the creeping fascist government and mentality, that is taking over the US, did not like educated people. Why? Because educated people would question his actions and raise alarms.
What is ‘sugar coated’ as “efficiency”, is really an attempt to turn the US and even many other parts of our world into mean spirited, cruel, uncharitable, small minded, money-for-the-rich-at-the-expense- of-everything-else kinds of places.
Any government department in a free, democratic country is staffed by ‘unelected’ civil servants. How is Musk different?
He has been given control of all of those departments, by the President’s “DO GE department”, which has not been democratically ratified, by Congress. Musk cannot, himself be fired, as a civil servant could be. He has not passed security clearances. He has locked the most senior managers out of the buildings where they are employed.
I cannot understand how any US citizen can be thinking that this rapid descent into fascism is a good thing?!
Most international countries leaders are watching, in shock.
Unless the USAID decision is reversed, it is likely that the Chinese government will pick up significant amounts of the lost USAID.
I predict that shift, due to the evidence, shown when my conservative, Australian government tried Trump’s approach. When my government decided to halt aid to island nations, north of Australia, the Chinese government stepped in and began making deals with those nations, in exchange for the right to build military bases close to Australia,
Very fortunately, the election of the current government has led to the very delicate process of re-establishing diplomatic ties, that had been damaged by Trump-style, cancelling of aid.
Maybe the US decision to stop offering worldwide aid, despite being one of the wealthiest countries in our world, will ultimately have a silver lining; due to the likelihood of other countries stepping in and developing those mutually beneficial relationships?
I cannot personally understand how anyone can have voted for Trump, when they could, at least, have voted for the US Green Party and sent a message that real alternatives are needed to the corrupted domination of both, main US political parties?
As US citizens, your voting choices DO affect so many other places in our world.
That responsibility only makes some of the MAGA, trolling comments, here, even more disturbing, to me.
Unfortunately, I cannot thank those people who voted for Trump. From only a month of evidence, I believe that he and Musk are a worrying concern, to us all.
Please campaign to introduce US electoral reform!
Ivanka was in charge of USAID last time. Why didn’t they find all of these atrocities then? Which do you prefer, that they were lying then, or are they lying now?
None of these comments about politics has anything to do with Science! This is not a platform to discuss your political views one way or another. There are plenty of OTHER places to express yourself politically…not here please.