Making use of some common and inexpensive reagents, scientists have successfully devise a method to get rid of two major classes of “forever chemicals”. Call as PFAS or perfluoroalkyl chemicals, these are a group of chemicals that are known to be stubbornly difficult to break down without considerable effort.
These are manufacture and commonly use since the 1940s.
Scientists have find that these forever chemicals can withstand fire and cannot be even dilute using water.
So, when buried, these toxic chemicals leach into the surrounding soil and pose a danger to the environment while also affect humans.
A new method develop by researchers has proven to be effective in breaking down these chemicals leaving behind only harmless end products.
The chemical, PFAS, is in use as a waterproofing and nonstick agent for more than 70 years.
They are commonly use to make nonstick cookware, firefighting foams, water-repellant fabrics, and waterproof cosmetics that resist oil and grease.
By such wide use, PFAS have seep into consumer goods, in drinking water, and even into human blood.
And its health effects are not clear to researchers, exposure to PFAS has link to developmental effects in children, decrease fertility, and an increase in cholesterol levels, as per researchers.
Experts have able to filter PFAS from water, destroying them has proven to be an enormous task.
There are only a few options to do that with one being the use of high temperatures and pressures.
So, this method is quite energy intensive and could result in components being release into the air.
A group of researchers discover the ability to destroy the compound in another way, as part of a study.
The team spot a head group in the compound, which they term its Achilles’ heel.
They target the group by heating PFAS in a common reagent call as sodium hydroxide and note that the process remove the head group and left the reactive tail behind.
William Dichtel from Northwestern University. Dichtel is the lead author of the study publish in Science Said :
“That triggered all these reactions, and it started spitting out fluorine atoms from these compounds to form fluoride, which is the safest form of fluorine. Although carbon-fluorine bonds are super strong, that charged head group is the Achilles’ heel,”.
The team use computer simulations and observe that only benign end products were left in the process they develop.
The new technique could be use to successfully degrade 10 perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) and perfluoroalkyl ether carboxylic acids (PFECAs).
These also include perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) with one of its common replacements call as Genx, which are among the most prominent PFAS.
The team is aiming to test the new strategy to degrade other types of PFAS as well.
William Dichtel Said :
“There are other classes that don’t have the same Achilles’ heel, but each one will have its own weakness. If we can identify it, then we know how to activate it to destroy it,”.
