New Technology Uses Sunlight to Help Reduce Harmful Forever Chemicals

As concerns about permanent chemicals continue to grow, experts are racing to find solutions to eliminate them from the environment. Man-made compounds, abundant in industrial manufacturing, firefighting foams and many consumer products, can be found virtually everywhere – from drinking water and lakes to the dust in our homes.

Unfortunately, as they build up in our bodies, the chemicals can be linked to serious health problems. Currently, limiting exposure falls primarily on consumers, who may use water filters, ditch nonstick cookware, and avoid certain food packaging.

Now, an international research team led by the University of Bath in the United Kingdom has developed a method to break down PFAS – the chemical term for everlasting chemicals – using sunlight. Not only did they successfully transform PFAS into less harmful compounds, but this technology could also be used to detect chemicals in our environment forever, as described in their study published in RSC advances.

“We hope that our technology can, in the future, be used in a simple wearable sensor that can be used outside the laboratory, for example, to detect higher levels of PFAS in the environment,” said project leader Frank Marken, from the Department of Chemistry and the Institute for Sustainability and Climate Change at the University of Bath, in a press release.

Learn more: Lasers could help detect nanoplastics and microplastics in body fluids

Forever Chemicals products can harm our health and the environment

Since the introduction of perennial chemicals, or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), in the 1940s, they have become widespread in the environment and in our households. Due to their incredibly stable chemical properties, they degrade very slowly, if at all, and therefore can easily accumulate in our bodies, water systems, and even food chains.

“PFAS are used in many different products, from waterproof clothing to lipstick, but they accumulate in the body and the environment over time, with toxic effects,” said the study’s first author, Fernanda Martins of the University of São Paulo, in a press release.

We still don’t fully understand the long-term effects of PFAS on our health and the environment, but according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, current evidence shows a link between permanent chemicals and increased risks of certain cancers, impacts on fertility and immune system impairment.

Sunlight-powered PFAS degradation

Hoping to expand the currently complex repertoire of PFAS remediation approaches, the research team (made up of scientists from the United Kingdom, Brazil, Scotland, and Wales) developed a simple carbon-based catalyst combined with a rigid microporous polymer activated by sunlight.

They explain how the polymer guides the PFAS to bind to the catalyst, which uses sunlight to break them down in a process called photodegradation. The end products are carbon dioxide and fluoride, both naturally occurring in our environment.

“Our project combined an easy-to-make carbon-based catalyst with a polymer called PIM-1 to make PFAS degradation more efficient, especially at neutral pH, which would be found naturally in the environment,” Martins added.

Improving detection of perennial chemicals in our environment

The prototype not only successfully broke down PFAS, but could also be expanded to track them in the environment. The researchers described how the technology could become a sensor measuring the amount of fluoride released from samples.

“Currently, it is very difficult to detect PFAS, requiring expensive equipment in a specialized laboratory,” says Marken. As the method is still in the early stages of development, the researchers are optimistic that the technology could become a wearable sensor for use outside the laboratory. Currently, they hope to collaborate with industry to improve the technology for large-scale production.

Learn more: Your microbiome can absorb PFAS, protecting you from the harm of “forever chemicals”

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