Journey to Destroy PFAS

By Erika Pietrzak, June 28 , 2025

PFAS are used in many everyday items, but their pollution can end lives. However, promising advancements are being made every year by scientists working tirelessly to solve forever chemicals’ forever problems.

Source: EHN

For years, scientists have been tirelessly working to find a way to destroy PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), a class of synthetic chemicals used in the manufacture of consumer products that remain in air, water, or soil permanently—earning them the nickname ‘forever chemicals.’ These bioaccumulating chemicals persistently increase in concentration as they cycle through our ecosystems, as they do not naturally degrade. This causes their presence to grow exponentially as the population increases alongside the manufacturing of PFAS.

PFAS are used in many everyday items, but their pollution can end lives. Invented in the 1930s, PFAS gained popularity in nonstick items in the 40s and 50s. Although older PFAS have largely been phased out, newer variants like GenX PFAS have replaced them. These still contribute to environmental contamination, often accumulating at high levels before triggering noticeable health effects. The two most common kinds of PFAS are PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid), each linked to their own health complications. PFAS is commonly found in firefighting foam, food packaging, cosmetics, cookware, and electronics. Companies do not have to disclose their use of PFAS to consumers, and the Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate most PFAS chemicals.\

PFAS are associated with low birth weights, thyroid disease, cancers, and high cholesterol. A series of studies done in the early 2020s found links between different types of PFAS and specific kinds of cancer, specifically testicular and kidney cancer. PFAS have also been found to negatively impact reproduction and vaccine effectiveness. Just as PFAS persist in the environment, they also cannot break down in the human body, increasing health risks over time. Alarmingly, 98 percent of participants in a survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention were found to have PFAS in their bloodstream, breast milk, or umbilical cords.. This has led to some newborns being born with PFAS already in their bloodstream.

Source: King County

Due to their strong carbon-fluorine bonds, the only solution to break down these forever chemicals has been to incinerate them at temperatures up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit to “enable an oxidation reaction that breaks the carbon​-fluorine bond.” This process releases harmful chemicals into the air and requires significant energy. Due to the longevity and potency of PFAS, “many newborns have detectable levels of PFAS in their bloodstream due to in utero exposure.” In June 2022, two thousand US communities had PFAS levels in their drinking water that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s limits.

In 2014, a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst took some of the first major steps forward in the search for a viable way to destroy PFAS. By testing electrochemical oxidation in the lab, Dr. Julie Mullen created highly reactive molecules with a single unpaired electron, which makes them powerful oxidizing agents. She claimed that “those electrons will almost immediately break the carbon-fluorine bond if we’re able to get PFAS onto the anode surface.” Scientists say this technique could destroy over 99 percent of long-chain PFAS and does not require high temperatures or additional chemicals. This discovery began the race for finding the solution to PFAS, leading to several collaborations being forged across the world and giving hope for a cleaner future.

Source: National Wildlife Federation Blog

One of the first examples of successfully destroying PFAS came from Northwestern University. In 2022, scientists at Northwestern found that sodium hydroxide, an ingredient used in soap production, and dimethyl sulfoxide, used in bladder medication, showed promising signs of breaking down PFAS at temperatures of 248 degrees Fahrenheit, significantly lower than the required temperatures for earlier processes. However, this method was only effective for PFOA and GenX variants of PFAS—not for older compounds such as PFOS.

In 2024, the EPA held a competition to get new, innovative ideas on how to destroy PFAS. Dr. Brian Pinkard, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder at Aquagga Inc., won the competition with his contribution. Dr. Pinkard suggested the use of aqueous film-forming foam, a type of firefighting foam. Dr. Pinkard found promising signs of using hydrothermal processes to leverage the “properties of high-temperature and high-pressure water to destroy PFAS compounds and minimize harmful byproducts.” Partnering with 3M, Aquagga destroyed over 99 percent of PFAS in one thousand gallons of highly concentrated wastewater over 200 hours. Uniquely, this tactic “efficiently handles high-salt waste streams without the need for extensive dilution or pre-treatment.”

We are now closer than ever to destroying PFAS once and for all. Gradiant’s multi-award-winning ForeverGone product is called by its head of technology an “all-in-one” solution to remove and destroy PFAS. Using micro-foam fractionation (similar to that of Dr. Pinkard) and electro-oxidation (similar to Dr. Mullen), the company has been able to separate PFAS from water and then concentrate it approximately one hundred thousand times. The PFAS then experiences electro-oxidation, breaking it down into fluoride ions, CO2, and byproducts of water. You can learn more about this process on their website.

Promising advancements are being made every year by scientists working tirelessly to solve forever chemicals’ forever problems. The widespread use of these chemicals has led to thousands of health impacts across the country and will only worsen if we do not find a way to remove PFAS from our water, air, and soil. While these improvements are crucial and revolutionary, we must continue to progress for lasting and widespread changes to improve the health of our people and our environment.

Change The Chamber is a nonpartisan coalition of young adults, 100+ student groups across the country, environmental justice and frontline community groups, and other allied organizations.