Scientists find a simple way to destroy 'forever chemicals' — by beheading them
Scientists find a simple way to destroy 'forever chemicals' — by beheading them
PFAS chemicals, which contaminate water forever, can be broken down after all.
the chemicals may interfere with the body's hormones, raise cholesterol levels, affect fertility and increase the risk of certain cancers, according to the EPA."
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These articles are always feel so silly for anyone in the field. There are literally dozens of papers coming out every week on the subject of PFAS destruction and probably about 10-20% of them are equally "simple".
The problem isn't destroying the C-F bonds, it is doing it efficiently and with enough scalability to process hundreds of tons of soil or lakes worth of water without making a bigger mess than we started with. Most of the common PFAS compounds are going to be tied into CERCLA and the RCRA hazardous substance lists hopefully this year which should mediate further environmental contamination, but we have to make chemical companies do more due diligence regarding chronic exposure risks before they make new compounds mainstream and ubiquitous.
But I'm not in the field. My reasoning for posting this: I see news about PFAs a lot, this was fresh to me and I was glad to hear the news that chemists are at work on the problem (many communities in WA have contaminated water). And simply-enough for 'newbs' to learn from. I don't find a 'technology for experts' 'community' on Lemmy.
Livescience is far from the best source, but I checked that they had a link to the study (Science) in it.
It appears, going by the comments, that others who are not 'in the field' were happy to learn about. It'd be great if more people 'in the field' would post about such discoveries now and then.