PFAS, often known as forever chemicals, are a class of synthetic chemicals that are widely used in food packaging and machinery but have recently been linked to cancer, liver and heart damage and developmental damage to infants and children. Meanwhile, forever chemicals have increasingly been detected in fruit, vegetables and drinking water.
As a result, some manufacturers have started replacing certain PFAS with other kinds or fluorine-free substances, while five EU member states called for an overall ban on all PFAS last year.
In the UK, PFOA and its salts and certain perfluorinated silane substances are banned, but for food and food contact materials there are currently no specific restrictions, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the US announced the first-ever national safety standard for PFAS in drinking water at 4 parts per trillion earlier this year.
PFAS detection
Currently, the best method for testing PFAS in water involves liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometry, a costly and complicated process.
However, the UMass Amherst study demonstrates that a small, inexpensive device is feasible for identifying various PFAS families and detecting PFAS at levels as low as 400 parts per trillion.
While this proof-of-concept stage invention does not reach the same level of sensitivity or the breadth of PFAS types that can be detected compared to mass spectrometry, the researchers envisage an application to use this method as a first-screening tool to identify the water that poses the greatest risks to human health.
Chang Liu, associate professor of biomedical engineering at UMass Amherst and corresponding author of the paper published in the journal Science Advances, hopes that their research will help raise awareness to the hazards of PFAS and eventually lead to a commercialised portable detector for water monitoring in the field.
“We’re bringing the cost of the instrument from the scale of a million dollars to a few thousand,” said Liu.
“We need better technology for detecting PFAS – more accessible, more affordable and easier to use. And more testing that’s on site. That’s the motivation.”
In other news, KP Snacks has agreed to acquire Whole Earth Foods from Ecotone.
