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PFAS, the pollutants better known as “forever chemicals”, are also “everywhere chemicals”. They have pervaded the terrestrial environment — from soil and water to our food and bodies — posing a threat to public health that is receiving growing attention from campaigners and regulators around the world.
Earlier this year, two campaigning organisations, ChemSec and the European Environmental Bureau, jolted public opinion across Europe by releasing the results of tests on 11 senior EU politicians, who all had significant amounts of PFAS in their blood. Five of them had levels that “exceeded existing levels of concern”.
“Evidence of the pervasive presence of PFAS and their potential harm is increasing,” says Jonatan Kleimark, ChemSec’s head of corporate sustainability. “We welcome the growing political will to tackle the issue, but the problem with regulating PFAS is the huge impact this could have on many different sectors of industry.”
PFAS are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances: organic compounds containing fluorine atoms, with properties such as repelling water and resisting chemical attack that have given them a wide range of applications. According to the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry, more than 4,700 PFAS are known. They are used in consumer products such as non-stick pans and waterproof clothing, as well as firefighting foams and many manufacturing processes, particularly semiconductor production.
Regulations are now being brought in to restrict both the upstream uses of PFAS and their appearance downstream, as contaminants in drinking water. An international study published last month and led by researchers at the University of Birmingham in the UK and Southern University of Science and Technology in China detected PFAS in 99 per cent of bottled water sourced from 15 countries around the world.
“While current PFAS levels in most water samples are not a major health concern, ongoing monitoring and regulation are crucial to protect public health,” says co-author Stuart Harrad of Birmingham.
At the same time, the US Geological Survey released a study of the country’s groundwater showing that more than 20 per cent of the US population — between 71mn and 95mn people — rely on drinking water with detectable PFAS concentrations.
99%Proportion of bottled water containing PFAS, according to an international study
Epidemiological studies suggest that the adverse effects of PFAS exposure include increased risk of developing some cancers, reduced immune function, and developmental delays in children.
Regulators around the world are therefore gradually tightening the restrictions on PFAS in drinking water, through a variety of approaches.
Some are imposing limits on PFAS collectively and others are focusing on individual chemicals, particularly on the two most prevalent pollutants: perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS).
According to IDTechEx, a technology consultancy in Cambridge, UK, the US Environmental Protection Agency has instituted the world’s lowest acceptable concentration levels for PFOA and PFOS at four parts per trillion each.
In the UK, the Drinking Water Inspectorate moved in August to impose a maximum level for 48 PFAS on water companies in England and Wales, of 100 nanograms per litre, applicable from January 2025.
“We are pleased with the new cumulative limit, though we’d also like to see the cap for individual PFAS reduced to 10 nanograms each,” says Stephanie Metzger, policy adviser to the Royal Society of Chemistry, which launched a campaign for stricter limits last year after finding that more than a third of water courses exceeded its preferred levels.
“While the new total limit will protect our drinking water, the chemicals continue to accumulate in our rivers, aquifers and environment,” she points out. “We don’t know how many of these chemicals are being produced and where they end up, so we urge government and industry to create a national inventory of PFAS and enforce stricter limits on industry discharges.”
Meanwhile, scientists in university and company labs around the world are working to develop ways to remove PFAS from water supplies, by breaking down the chemicals or trapping them in filters.
For example, researchers at the University of Bath in the UK have made ceramic-infused lattices called “monoliths”, which extract 75 per cent of PFOA from contaminated water. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a new filtration material based on natural silk and cellulose removes a wide range of PFAS, while having antimicrobial properties that prevent fouling by bacteria and fungi.
And chemical engineers at the University of British Columbia in Canada have developed a system that combines an activated carbon filter to catch PFAS with a patented catalyst that uses ultraviolet light to break down the trapped compounds into harmless components. During testing, it consistently removed 85 per cent of PFOA.
The drive to remove PFAS from municipal drinking water is expected create a fast-growing market for remediation technologies. IDTechEx estimates that this will grow at a compound annual rate of 20.9 per cent over the next 10 years, reaching $2.26bn by 2035.
Manufacturers will also have to look for new chemicals that can replace PFAS. “There are other polymers that can do a similar job,” says Kleimark of ChemSec, “but there is no silver bullet. We have to be sure that the substitutes are not harmful. Otherwise, there is a risk of what we call ‘regrettable substitution’.”
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