A new discovery may mean an end to the label “forever chemicals” – and perhaps an end to the chemicals themselves. According to an article from Science Daily, adding sulfite to iodide under ultraviolet light can destroy up to 90% of carbon-fluorine atoms in per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in water in a few hours. The discovery was reportedly made by environmental engineering researchers at the University of California Riverside.
According to the leader of the study, Jinyong Liu, an assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering, the addition of iodide to a water treatment reactor that uses UV light and sulfite accelerates the speed of the reaction up to four times and allows the treatment of a ten times higher concentrations of PFAS. Liu’s lab reportedly has been working on ways to destroy PFAS through photochemical reactions since 2017 and will partner with industry to conduct pilot tests employing their method.
Read the entire article here.
