Once there was…
…a growing problem hiding in plain sight: “forever chemicals.” Officially known as PFAS (polyfluoroalkyl substances), these incredibly stable, water‑repellent compounds show up in everyday items—from non‑stick saucepans to make‑up—and they’re prevalent in the environment. Even more concerning, PFAS are known to accumulate in the human body, with long‑term health effects still not fully understood.
Every day,
PFAS persist. Their chemical strength—what makes them so useful in products—also makes them notoriously difficult to break down once they get into waterways, soil, and living organisms. Researchers and environmental teams are left with a tough challenge: how do you detect or remove something designed not to degrade?
Until one day,
an international team of scientists led by the University of Bath reported a breakthrough: a new catalyst (a substance that speeds up chemical reactions) that can use sunlight to break down PFAS. The work, published in RSC Advances, introduces a prototype carbon‑based photocatalyst that’s designed to be easy to make—and potentially scalable.
Because of that,
the team—bringing together researchers from the University of Bath with colleagues at the University of São Paulo (Brazil), the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), and Swansea University (Wales)—developed a photocatalyst based on carbon nitride combined with a rigid microporous polymer.
The polymer, called PIM‑1, plays a crucial role: it helps bind PFAS to the catalyst. Once the “forever chemical” is held in place, light can do the rest—driving reactions that break PFAS down into carbon dioxide and fluoride (a chemical also found in some toothpastes).
As the researchers put it:
“Our project has combined an easy-to-make carbon-based catalyst with a polymer called PIM-1 to make PFAS breakdown more efficient, especially at neutral pH, which would be naturally found in the environment.”
Because of that,
this isn’t just about destroying PFAS—it could also be about finding them.
The same process that breaks PFAS apart releases fluoride, and that fluoride could be detected. In other words, the technology may be adapted into a sensor for forever chemicals, using the fluoride “signal” to reveal PFAS presence.
That possibility opens a practical future use case: a simple portable sensor that works outside the lab, helping teams identify where PFAS levels are higher in the environment.
Ever since then,
the work has moved forward as a prototype—promising, but not yet ready for wide deployment. The research team is now looking for industrial partners to help scale up and optimize the technology, with a longer-term goal of real-world environmental detection and removal.
If successful, this sunlight-powered approach could represent something rare in the PFAS fight: a path toward breaking down “forever” into something far less permanent.
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