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Pollution cleanup method destroys toxic “forever chemicals”
- DoreenMichele 4y agoThey've found a way to destroy it in water, which is good news. No mention of progress towards getting it out of people.
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoWell, humans are mostly water, so... > The patent-pending process infuses contaminated water with hydrogen, then blasts the water with high-energy, short-wavelength ultraviolet light. The hydrogen polarizes water molecules to make them more reactive, while the light catalyzes chemical reactions that destroy the pollutants, known as PFAS or poly- and per-fluoroalkyl substances. Oh. That does not sound like a process that I want happening inside my cells. So, yeah, what you said. No progress toward getting it out of people.
- goalieca 4y agoOr any actual ecosystem
- idontwantthis 4y agoIf it can be done in water purification plants then that's good news.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoI mean it'll cost a lot of hydrogen to do at that scale, but they're considering and setting up projects to build hydrogen production plants to turn any excess electricity from e.g. solar panels into hydrogen. It scales up and down easily, and hydrogen stores pretty well and has plenty of applications, from this to hydrogen cars / trucks, etc. They're even thinking of reusing the existing natural gas lines throughout the country to transport hydrogen. Probably not to homes though.
- samstave 4y agoBut couldn't this be made into an intermediary device that one would hook up to their main water connection to a home, like a reverse osmosis type device, and ensure that your tap water is pure? Then, if you're flushing your system with such pure water - maybe it does a good job on the liver and kidneys? I drink A LOT of water each day... and what I would also like to know is if this system has any effect on the removal of fluoride from water (tap water) --- Side note: My dad was very good friends with the CEO of Alcoa for many years... and fluoride is a side product of aluminum manufacture, and the quote Ill never forget was "The reason the put fluoride in the water is they dont have any other place to put it - so they store it in your liver" I dont know if that was a joke - but I was like 15 when he said it, so I wasnt sure if he was fn with me....
- engineer_22 4y agoAs I understand it, this is a process, not a filter, so it does not remove any matter from the water, it changes the PFAs into something else, presumably something that is not as harmful. Carbon filtration will remove any contaminants (e.g. Florida, chlorine) in your water through adsorption. For the money, you can't beat it.
- autoexec 4y agoHe was probably joking, but that is one of the many conspiracy theories that exist about fluoridated water so it's possible he was a believer. The actual reason the put fluoride in the water is because it helps prevent cavities. Reverse osmosis filters can remove it.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agohttps://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fluoride-childrens-health-grandjean-choi/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fluoride-children... > In a meta-analysis, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and China Medical University in Shenyang for the first time combined 27 studies and found strong indications that fluoride may adversely affect cognitive development in children. My GF is from the UK where they fluoridate the water. Tap water is undrinkable (flavor) and should only be used after boiling (evaporates the fluoride and chlorine). She had pretty serious fluoridosis (demineralisation of her teeth) which sorted itself out while living here (NL, we're lucky to have fresh groundwater). IMO, fluoride is fine for external use (in toothpaste), but shouldn't be consumed. If I may put on my conspiratorial tin-foil hat, it's a means of population control - keep them stupid and docile.
- nszceta 4y agoThe primary route of elimination of PFAAs is through the kidney in the urine (Han et al., 2008). Other important clearance pathways include menstruation (Harada et al., 2005; Taylor et al., 2014; Park et al., 2019; Ding et al., 2020), pregnancy (Monroy et al., 2008) and lactation (Bjermo et al., 2013). Sex hormones have been identified as a major factor in determining the renal clearance of PFAAs. One study examined the role of sex hormones and transport proteins on renal clearance and observed that, in ovariectomised female rats, oestradiol could facilitate the transport of PFAAs across the membranes of kidney tubules into the glomerular filtrate, resulting in lower serum concentrations (Kudo et al., 2002). Han X, Mingoia R, Snajdr S, Yang C, Nabb D. Uptake of perfluorooctanoate in freshly isolated hepatocytes from male and female rats. Toxicol Lett 2008;181:81–86. Harada K, Inoue K, Morikawa A, Yoshinaga T, Saito N, Koizumi A. Renal clearance of perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoate in humans and their species-specific excretion. Environ Res 2005;99:253–261. Taylor KW, Hoffman K, Thayer KA, Daniels JL. Polyfluoroalkyl chemicals and menopause among women 20-65 years of age (NHANES). Environ Health Perspect 2014;122:145–150. Park SK, Peng Q, Ding N, Mukherjee B, Harlow SD. Determinants of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in midlife women: evidence of racial/ethnic and geographic differences in PFAS exposure. Environ Res 2019;175:186–199. Ding N, Harlow SD, Batterman S, Mukherjee B, Park SK. Longitudinal trends in perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances among multiethnic midlife women from 1999 to 2011: the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation. Environ Int 2020;135:105381. Monroy R, Morrison K, Teo K, Atkinson S, Kubwabo C, Stewart B, Foster WG. Serum levels of perfluoroalkyl compounds in human maternal and umbilical cord blood samples. Environ Res 2008;108:56–62. Bjermo H, Darnerud PO, Pearson M, Barbieri HE, Lindroos AK, Nälsén C, Lindh CH, Jönsson BAG, Glynn A. Serum concentrations of perfluorinated alkyl acids and their associations with diet and personal characteristics among Swedish adults. Mol Nutr Food Res 2013;57:2206–2215. Kudo N, Katakura M, Sato Y, Kawashima Y. Sex hormone-regulated renal transport of perfluorooctanoic acid. Chem Biol Interact 2002;139:301–316.
- spqr0a1 4y agoA correction. The Kudo et al., 2002 study found that estradiol lowered the filtration rate in ovariectomised rats. But supplemental estradiol did improve the clearance rate for intact male rats.
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- ramraj07 4y agoOnly necessary if it accumulates in our body, instead of staying in equilibrium with the environment (which is likely the case)
- eurasiantiger 4y agoUnfortunately these chemicals bioaccumulate, as their half-life in vitro is measured in years.
- jraby3 4y agoThe only way I’ve read for a male to remove it is through blood and/or plasma donations.
- autoexec 4y agoThat sucks if you're gay though. Maybe there should be places that will just take your blood and throw it away for you?
- rocqua 4y agoLeeching makes a comeback.
- joshvm 4y agoThis would be a dialysis machine. There is some evidence that they're capable of removing some perfluorinated chemicals, though it seems they aren't effective against all types, at least at low concentrations. I'm sure there are private clinics somewhere that will take your money and hook you up for a blood detox, but it's a four hour process so not a practical solution for everyone. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0200271 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- brianwawok 4y agoAren’t they finally starting to think about letting gays donate blood again? I know we aren’t there yet but sounds like at least some rumblings of progress…
- cobbal 4y agoPretty easy to convert humans into aqueous goo; I don't see the problem here.
- danaris 4y agoHopefully this isn't used as an excuse not to stop actually dumping and polluting with those chemicals, because "we can just clean it up!"
- XorNot 4y agoI mean this seems like bigger news for waste-stream remediation from the sources directly?
- cyanydeez 4y agoThe hard part is the sheer size of the problem: miles of aquifers, 100s of feet down, billion of gallons, etc. The destruction needs more that pump and treat.
- kneath 4y agoFor most urban areas where this contamination is prevalent (old dry cleaner & brake cleaner spills), there are a limited number of well heads that pull from the polluted aquifers to supply municipal water.
- rocqua 4y agoIf we can just keep existing PFAS out of our drinking water, and stop PFAS production, it's a massive improvement over the status quo. We'll stil get it from food that uses untreated water to grow, and the wider environment still suffers, but it remains a big step.
- DoingIsLearning 4y agoI am sure governments will be able to externalize the cost of such an undertaking to Dupont and 3M, right? Right?
- salamo 4y agoIt sounds like this research is pretty promising. I will be very happy if this can be deployed in water treatment plants. However, there is a remaining problem of removing these chemicals from everything else. What about crops grown in contaminated soil, or meat from animals who've eaten contaminated food? It seems that a lot of fish and shellfish may be contaminated. [1] Messes are a lot easier to make than to clean up. [1] https://www.fda.gov/food/chemical-contaminants-food/questions-and-answers-pfas-food https://www.fda.gov/food/chemical-contaminants-food/question...
- teucris 4y ago> Given the regulatory push, Liu’s laboratory team is “marching toward commercialization” with help from a $50,000 proof-of-concept grant from UCR’s Office of Technology Partnership to scale up this technology to handle larger volumes of water, Liu said. One $50k grant? That seems like a tiny amount for possible fix to such a big problem.
- fathyb 4y agoIt's a POC grant, more money should get unlocked if it succeeds. Smaller grants means more grants and more research (hopefully!).
- jeppester 4y agoBetter have 20 projects get a grant of $50.000 than one project getting $1.000.000. It's a way of not putting all the eggs in one basket.
- frumiousirc 4y agoBetter to have 20 projects get a grant of $1M. Better yet to have that paid for by taxing the outrageous profits of corporations that benefit from and produce the hazard. Better third, pay for it by taxing the individual CEOs responsible.
- crossingTime 4y agoRelated - I spent years injecting molasses into the ground to do VOC remediation. https://semspub.epa.gov/work/HQ/401583.pdf https://semspub.epa.gov/work/HQ/401583.pdf We used GeoProbe tooling to get the molasses down there.
- foolfoolz 4y agoenvironmental safety science has a messaging problem. it’s too polarized - “forever chemicals”… actually aren’t forever - plastic never degrades… until we found the right enzyme for it - were “past the point of no return” for greenhouse gasses temp increases… until we find a solution for it the way these problems are communicated are done in a way it seems to scare people into thinking a certain way. but i think it reinforces the echo chamber for those who already believed it and just erodes trust instead for the rest
- woodruffw 4y agoI don’t think it’s polarized, but there’s a language barrier: when environmental scientists speak, you should probably suffix everything they say with “in the environment.” Forever chemicals are indeed forever, in the environment, because there are virtually no natural processes that break them down on human timescales. Many plastics similarly do not degrade in the environment on human scales. It’s incumbent upon you, as a lay person, to understand that science isn’t categorical in nature. When scientists use phrases like “forever,” they’re making statements relative to the domain of interest.
- denton-scratch 4y ago> When scientists use phrases like “forever,” That'll be journalists, not scientists.
- magicalhippo 4y agoIndeed. Scientist calls them "persistent"[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutant
- yellow_lead 4y agoI think that's a bit ridiculous - obviously science and the scope of human knowledge changes as we move forwards. Yes there was no solution, yes there now may be a solution. I would hope people can understand that reporting is based on current knowledge and is subject to change in the future - especially in science.
- pomian 4y agoAnother big problem with these families of contaminants, is they are heavier than water. Contaminants such as oil, gasoline, and diesel, are lighter than water.(Called LNAPL- light non aqueous phase liquids.) and therefore float on water. So when they sink into the ground, they hit a water table and stop, floating on that water table. Water tables are about 5 to 50 meters underground - moving very very, slowly - usually off sight (towards a neighbor.) It is fairly easy to pump that to contaminated layer of water up, treat it, and pump it back down, a bit downstream. Chlorinated and fluorinated compounds, and other similarly constructed organic compounds are DNAPL - dense non aqueous phase liquids. They sink. They hit the water table, and keep sinking, not only below the water table, but further. Finding cracks in the bedrock and they keep sinking. It is almost impossible to get at them to clean them all up . Some small fraction of the DNAPL pollutants may be transported with the ground water, the rest stays and goes deeper. And you can't get at them. You need to drill: very deep, through bedrock, and many holes, which aren't connected. Read as: very very expensive. Once you remove the source of the contaminants,. You can reduce the main part of the problem. They are also somewhat volatile, so they sometimes migrate up. Sometimes as gases. (But that's another story.) Meanwhile, quite often the treatment technique, can make the contaminants more toxic! Oxidizing a contaminant with chlorine in it can turn it into a simpler, less complex contaminant, which may be more reactive, and/or more toxic. In summary it's the sort of a system that is complicated and one has to understand it, and think about the possible scenarios. Often it is cheaper and most realistic to pave such a site, hence isolating the contamination, underground. (In some cases, depending on the results of a risk analysis, continuous or yearly monitoring is mandated, to see if the contamination is spreading off site. For example dry cleaning solvents, may reduce to PVC (poly vinyl chloride), which may further to reduce to Vinyl Chloride - an even more toxic contaminant.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago> Chlorinated and fluorinated compounds, and other similarly constructed organic compounds are DNAPL - dense non aqueous phase liquids. They sink. They hit the water table, and keep sinking, not only below the water table, but further. Finding cracks in the bedrock and they keep sinking. It is almost impossible to get at them to clean them all up . Some small fraction of the DNAPL pollutants may be transported with the ground water, the rest stays and goes deeper. And you can't get at them. This sounds like a self-solving problem: pollutants sinking deep, well past water table, near-impossible to get at, never to be seen again (and presumably recycled by Earth's geology in a hundred thousand years). What am I missing?
- graderjs 4y agoSuch a cool idea! I hope it sees widespread use soon. Only catch (I don't know) are the products really harmless?
- DoingIsLearning 4y agoThings like fire extinguishing foam are probably some unavoidable evil. But realistically how many of us are buying rainproof stuff when all we needed was something water-resistant? Recently I was looking for a tweed winter jacket only to realize that those are now also being treated with water resistant coatings! Most use-cases people are out in the rain for stretches of 20min and run inside for shelter shortly after. Unless you work outdors or are on a day long hike/cycle there is no need to have this much 100% waterproof stuff. Waxed/greased materials or just wool do a good enough job for most mortals and have served us well for thousands of years.
- polytely 4y agoYeah they probably should just start banning frivolous use completely everywhere there are alternatives
- hbossy 4y agoI wonder how harmful are waterproofing sprays like this: https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/water-repellent-re-activator-spray-for-footwear-clothing-and-equipment/_/R-p-307649?mc=8640816 https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/water-repellent-re-activator-s... they are incredibly effective in keeping my shoes dry but seeing people using it on national park trailheads makes me a little nervous.
- hammock 4y agoThey’re terrible, and as bad as you think. Those are PFCs in a can. Look for Nikwax brand, which makes waterproofing products that are all PFC-free
- DoingIsLearning 4y agoI recently bought kids rain boots, just normal vulcanized rubber which is itself water proof. The lady at the counter asked if I wanted a water repellent coating (PFC) on it for extra money. They are exposing toddlers to this crap for literally no benefit. The pace at which we allow chemistry innovation to permiate consumer markets needs to be curbed.
- Bagimodal 4y ago[dead]
- Tepix 4y agoI hope this process can also be used in non-industrial settings like an african village or on a boat.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoNot sure why you mentioned "african village", sounds like you have some prejudices about those. Anyway, probably not, since the process requires hydrogen. I think if you're not near a water mains, other means of water purification will be a bit more important.
- LgWoodenBadger 4y agoBecause it shouldn’t be limited to wealthy, industrialized nations. Especially when those same places are the ones who created the problem in the first place. Or in other words, everyone deserves clean water.
- photochemsyn 4y agoThese general strategies of UV-powered destruction of halogenated organic chemicals have been known and studied for decades. The real issue in terms of pollution control is that you have to build expensive backends on chemical factories that make the fluorinated or chlorinated products to destroy the waste, and this can easily double the production cost, so chemical corporations have lobbied hard against things like the Clean Water Act. See this from 1986, for example, which looks at chlorinated organics (granted, fluorinated organics are harder to break down to CO2 + non-reactive fluoride ions) SUNDSTROM et al. (1986). Destruction of Halogenated Aliphatics by Ultraviolet Catalyzed Oxidation with Hydrogen Peroxide. Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Materials, 3(1) https://sci-hub.se/10.1089/hwm.1986.3.101 https://sci-hub.se/10.1089/hwm.1986.3.101 Cleaning up after the fact is highly inefficient, it's far better to just ensure that facilities like Teflon factories aren't emitting any waste in the first place.
- jordanbeiber 4y agoThis is a part in realization of the true cost of producing things. In Sweden we call “sale” a “realization”, meaning consumers pay the true cost without markup. I always say we’re realizing the wrong way - cost should quadruple for every H&M item we buy, and the money should go to enforcement of clean production. Hard sell, but eventually a must; cut profit and increase price at the same time.
- hammock 4y agoIf we can’t get corporates to fund the UV treatment, can we get taxpayers to fund it on water treatment plants so we aren’t drinking and processing food with infested water?
- moloch-hai 4y agoHydrogen is extremely insoluble in water. How do they "infuse" it?