We May Finally Be Able To Destroy a Dreaded 'Forever Chemical' in Our Drinking Water (medium.com) 41
Compounds once thought indestructible were successfully broken down. From a report: 2019, nearly two dozen water agencies in Southern California were found to have reportable levels of cancer-causing chemical compounds in their wells. By 2020, 700 agencies with similar contamination had been identified across the United States. These compounds, known as perfluorinated alkylated substances or PFAS, are dubbed "forever chemicals" because, for a long time, there was no known way to break them down. But Sharma Yamijala, a computational chemist at the University of California, Riverside, may have just discovered a solution. After hearing about the issue at a seminar in 2019, he got to work on the problem with two colleagues at the university. The results of their project were published in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics in January. "I thought that we should try something out to understand what's happening," he tells OneZero. Since the 1940s, PFAS have been used in a wide variety of products, like food packaging, nonstick pans, paints, cleaning supplies, and even smartphones. Because they don't break down in the environment, they get into drinking water and other living organisms, many of which we eat. Since the body can't digest them either, they accumulate inside of us, too.
"These pollutants are very persistent," explains Bryan Wong, one of Yamijala's co-authors on the paper, to OneZero. "They last for a long time." High levels of PFAS intake are linked to cancer as well as low birth weight and thyroid hormone disruption, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In his research, Yamijala used computer simulations to study the chemical structure of the PFAS that are the most ubiquitous in the environment: perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid. The carbon-fluorine bond that acts as the backbone of these chemicals is one of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry, which is why they seem to last forever. But this is exactly what the team's breakthrough addresses: When they exposed the compounds to excess electrons -- a process called reduction -- the bond with the fluorine atom broke. What's more, the broken molecules that resulted from the process had a domino effect on the remaining PFAS in the water. In the simulation, these smaller molecules accelerated the breaking down of the other PFA molecules.
"These pollutants are very persistent," explains Bryan Wong, one of Yamijala's co-authors on the paper, to OneZero. "They last for a long time." High levels of PFAS intake are linked to cancer as well as low birth weight and thyroid hormone disruption, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In his research, Yamijala used computer simulations to study the chemical structure of the PFAS that are the most ubiquitous in the environment: perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid. The carbon-fluorine bond that acts as the backbone of these chemicals is one of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry, which is why they seem to last forever. But this is exactly what the team's breakthrough addresses: When they exposed the compounds to excess electrons -- a process called reduction -- the bond with the fluorine atom broke. What's more, the broken molecules that resulted from the process had a domino effect on the remaining PFAS in the water. In the simulation, these smaller molecules accelerated the breaking down of the other PFA molecules.
Is it ... (Score:1)
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That joke is ancient, and I think calling it "Hydrogen Oxide" would be more accurate.
Key word "Simulation" (Score:1)
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Simulations are great! That's where computing goes from being about downloading videos of kitten into doing something beneficial.
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Not that I can RTFA by clicking on the broken link, but the summary seems to imply they actually did do real chemistry by exposing the compunds "to excess electrons" after running the simulations. Not that TFS is necessarily accurately reporting TFA, though.
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Here's the choice. Would you rather research chemists spent a few pennies on simulation, maybe running a thousands variations in parallel. Or would you rather they use thousands of dollars in reagents and pay an army of assistants to clean the glassware?
Simulations are used because they are fast to setup, they scale, and are cheap in comparison. Is it a complete substitute for real world testing, not yet for chemistry.
For other fields we're already to the point where simulation is sufficient.
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Then he'll spread his magnificent golden wings and fly off into the sunset to go golfing in heaven.
May but won't (Score:4)
Too expensive, not even lead is being removed and that problem has been known since the Romans.
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Lead is known by the Romans PFAS is a rather modern chemical.
And let me tell you, having this stuff in your water supply can kill a town's economy. I live in an area where the rural town had a plastics plant polluting PFOA. This over a course of a few months turned it to a quaint prosperous little town to a ghost town. After spending millions of dollars of State Taxpayer money for a filtration system, and the polluting company is hit with legal action and the company that owned the area before too.
In sho
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"In short bad water is bad for everyone."
Sure, but lead makes stupid ...
More details (Score:5, Funny)
The summary omits the details of how the reaction to break down PFAS was achieved: It's by treating the water with generous quantities of a reagent mixture made out of dioxins, PCBs and methylmercury.
Serious Question: how can they be dangerous? (Score:4, Interesting)
I am not being snarky, I am hoping someone here can actually answer the question.
If a chemical is 'forever' because nothing breaks it down, then how can it be dangerous? Basically if nothing can affect it, how can it mess you up?
Mercury for example combines with something called 'thiols'. If it combines with the thiols in your body, you get sick.
So the way we fix it is flood the mercury with thiols from out of your body. It attaches to the non-human thiols and gets controlled.
Re: Serious Question: how can they be dangerous? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Serious Question: how can they be dangerous? (Score:5, Informative)
I am not being snarky, I am hoping someone here can actually answer the question.
If a chemical is 'forever' because nothing breaks it down, then how can it be dangerous? Basically if nothing can affect it, how can it mess you up?
Mercury for example combines with something called 'thiols'. If it combines with the thiols in your body, you get sick.
So the way we fix it is flood the mercury with thiols from out of your body. It attaches to the non-human thiols and gets controlled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It may not break down but it doesn't need to be chemically neutral.
Even if it is neutral, it can still mess up your body. Your cells have a bunch of tiny membranes that allow particular chemicals in and out. If this chemical can either get into the system, or block it then parts of the body malfunction.
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Acting as a catalyst, enzyme, or hormone, perhaps.
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Acting as a catalyst, enzyme, or hormone, perhaps.
Or just getting in the way.
For instance (if I've got this right) one of the candidate mechanisms for asbestos exposure causing mesothelioma:
The fibers get into the cell nucleus. During cell reproduction one sometimes gets tangled with a chromosome and tear out a big chunk. Then the repair mechanism splices the ends together without the middle.
For most big chunks this kills the affected daughter cell, sets its offspring up to be weaker by having less of som
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Scotch tape sticks to your skin, but it doesn't chemically bond to you. It definitely is interacting [wikipedia.org] with you though. And an otherwise inert molecule may fit into the right molecular plug, which is how you might taste something even if you can't digest it.
Having stuff in your body that may interact in unexpected way without changing chemically is a serious concern.
Seriously? (Score:3)
That is a purely computational study, with zero experimental backing, and done at a PFA concentration about 100000000000 times higher than found in waste water (they handled 43 water molecules with one PFA molecule, the relevant environmental concentrations are in the ppb/ppt range).
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Wait, what, are you suggesting you're not ready to dip yourself in a vat of acid to reduce your PFA levels?! Chicken.
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Wait, what, are you suggesting you're not ready to dip yourself in a vat of acid to reduce your PFA levels?! Chicken.
Not acid. Lye. Acid has a surplus of PROTONS, not electrons (nor hydroxyl or other negative ions).
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My pun needs some antioxidants.
Floxed (Score:2)
Water filters (Score:1)
Isnâ(TM)t it cheaper to just get a good water filter? Ours filters down to a micron.
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Re:Water filters (Score:4, Funny)
With home filters (e.g. Brita), you simply throw away the activated carbon filter periodically. So that collects the PFAS (and other stuff) from your water and transfers it to the local dump, where eventually it gets back into the groundwater. Recycling!
Present technology (Score:2)
Present technology may finally permit history to have an end.
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"Entropy must increase and not dissipate," you can't end history with technology.
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It was meant to be a joke, but actually, you can.
Bomb the entire planet with every nuke in existence and in 40 or 50 years, history would be over. There'd be no one left to document whatever passed for 'history'.
Well, sure. (Score:2)
But I don't think anyone thought it was physically impossible to break down PFAS in drinking water. The question is can you afford the energy it takes to break down all those carbon-fluorine bonds.
People have looked at electrochemical approaches to breaking down PFAS in wastewater. The main drawback is cost.
Link broken (Score:2)
Comedy Gold Summary (Score:2)
Reductions aren't new in chemistry, that's literally what fire is. (Well, fire is fully a RedOx reaction--the reduction is coupled with an oxidation because in chemistry everything will be perfectly balanced or you start violating laws of physics.) We're talking first year chem major stuff here, described as if it's exciting new stuff and not exactly that accurately.
The thing that really ought to be there is, well, what the rest of the reactants are. Is heat getting added? What about catalysts? I'm not
Excess electrons? Isn't that just ... (Score:1)
an electron donator?
Don't hold your breath (Score:2)
the journal "Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics" (Score:2)
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