This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
And now instead of stopping producing them, we will continue with the excuse 'we have the cure for the disease!'
You do realize, many of those "forever chemicals" have no alternative? PFOA for example is essential for modern production, because there is no other material known to withstand the temperatures and pressures needed in the production processes? So the alternative is either not to use them at all, with ALL the consequences - or we have use a proper way to dispose them.
Purification Plants are the same ~~argument~~ analogy.
Is there really no alternative in shampoo & disposable coffee cups?
I understand that these chemicals do have some outstanding properties but that doesn't mean unfettered production & use. Any risk assessment of a potential use really should include 100% resource recovery & disposal or recycling. This could have been done years ago but if industry can't self regulate then bans it is.
These chemicals make silent spring look like, um, er, weekend at Bernie's?
Well it's not really a decision between "either not use them at all, or have a proper way to dispose of them"
Yes, there are applications we don't have alternative materials that we can agree are essential like safety products. That being said, we should definitely cut down our use of PFAS for items like floss, cosmetics, etc while continuing to look for alternatives. We use it far too much just for added convenience, but that convenience could be doing a lot of harm.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/say-goodbye-PFAS/97/i46
Kinda like the idea in this article, seems like a good compromise
Oh i absolutely agree with you. Especially in cosmetics and other "day to day" products that are disposable.
But that's also exactly the argument - make companies and customers dispose of these products correctly, because banning PFAS outright will have devastating consequences. (Like 3M just shifting production to China from Europe. Europe had the highest safety and production standards for PTFE - now they are going to be produced in china with absolutely no standards )
And if there is a proper way to recycle those PFAS, there is no need to shift production to places where there are no standards so you can get a porper goretex jacket (for example), because phasing out PTFE for something other that's substitutable now has an incentive.
Depending on their impact, it is often worthwhile to seek alternatives that are less effective or convenient, but also less dangerous. We've had materials in the past which were also deemed "essential", and yet we moved away from them.
A lot of miracle substances tend to be extremely dangerous. There's nothing quite like asbestos when it comes to fire and heat resistance, but we can still make firefighters' clothes, or fireproof buildings, or brakes, even if it means they're heavier or harder to manufacture. R134 and especially R12 make fantastic refrigerants for car AC systems, but we phased those out in favor of substances that are more complex and costly to implement because of the calamitous effect they had on the ozone layer. Carbon tet is an incredible solvent and great at extinguishing fires too. But we don't use that anymore either.
You could be right, maybe there is truly no way around PFOAs, but I'm just calling out a pattern here. And maybe there's no workaround right now that doesn't cause more harm, but with enough research and investment, we can get there in the future.
Well, since working in the industry, i can say with a very high confidence: There will be substitutes, but not for everything - at least at this point in time. There may soon very well be a breakthrough in material science, but at this point there is no alternative in some use cases (like gaskets, that have to sustain extreme temperatures and pressures...).
But i absolutely do agree with you.
Good old copper is pretty hard to beat for a high temp/pressure (or vacuum). Chemical compatibility can be an issue though.
Viton gets used a lot & I'm struggling to think of alternatives to it.
I agree with you as a realist on the situation. We will never stop manufacturing them, at least for the foreseeable future. But we forget that something like recycling is the last stage of the 3R's to follow. We must first look to reduce consumption. We need to find alternatives where possible, and switch away from these forever chemicals anywhere we can. Next, while "reusing" is not the best term here, but we need to find ways to extend the life of the products that we are forced to use and try to use them up in every way we can. Then lastly we need to be recycling it as best as possible before we send it to an incinerator, or more realistically a developing nation landfill.
Reduce -> Reuse -> Recycle is listed that way for a reason. Everyone always just jumps to the final stage then argue about how bad the recycling is while not even considering ways to reduce or reuse throughout the entire process.
there is no other material known to withstand the temperatures and pressures needed in the production processes?
Production of what, exactly?
for example production of base chemicals that are used in various other follow up products, lot's of efficiency due to special membranes and so on.
...you really do need to be specific. Otherwise, it sounds like you're claiming that "the production processes" (of what, everything? all products in the entire economy?) require PFOAs- and that's plain bullshit.
Yes, there are some products for which there aren't equivalent inputs, and you don't need to be vague and generalize over all of productive everything in the economy in order to make that point- but given the opportunity to be specific, you specified "production of base chemicals that are used in various other follow-up products" and that's not a straight or specific answer to a direct question.
Humanity:
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.
the fastest way to take PFAS down was to heat the "forever chemical" to boiling along with DMSO and lye, or sodium hydroxide
Is it even feasible to basically pre-boil the drinking water on such a large scale?
I think the idea is to filter it out (which is also not easy) but then this gives you a way to destroy the concentrated pfas left behind. Because otherwise what are you supposed to do with the material you have filtered out? It'd be cool if regulations required the cost of destroying pfas be added to the sale of pfas which might help manufacturers decide that they don't need to add pfas to disposable things like paper plates after all.
Agreed 100%. They should be forced to add the cost of handling and recycling the material. Honestly, this should've been done with all plastic from the get go too.
DMSO and NaOH are not what you want in drinking water
Not the guillotine news I was expecting in 2024, but I'll take it.
Off with their heads!
Excellent news.
They make it sound trivial to filter away
Thank god, especially since everything is off the shelf, too.
Someone need the National Razor?
Sweet
