Comment box Scope: personal reaction Tone: neutral, supportive, reserved Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none It's nice to see this research. I'd like to see more research on other abundant...
Comment box
Scope: personal reaction
Tone: neutral, supportive, reserved
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
It's nice to see this research. I'd like to see more research on other abundant natural/agricultural/food-grade materials for this purpose. As the article says, silk supply might be insufficient for this to work globally. It would be nice to see multiple natural materials competing for the title of "best PFAS filter".
It sounds kind of complicated to manufacture though.
The researchers used a self-assembly method in which the silk fibroin protein is suspended in water and then templated into nanofibrils by inserting “seeds” of cellulose nanocrystals. This causes the previously disordered silk molecules to line up together along the seeds, forming the basis of a hybrid material with distinct new properties.
This is science-gibberish to me. I wonder how strong or long-lasting the filters are. If they end up being extremely cheap, I guess it's okay for them to be replaceable, but anytime we're talking about molecules I get the feeling these technologies are going to be very expensive but also short-lived.
I'd be happy to buy a filter like this for my sink if it were affordable.
So I have quite a bit of experience working in the drinking water industry and am quite familiar with PFAS regulation, though my knowledge is a little out of date concerning treatment. There are a...
So I have quite a bit of experience working in the drinking water industry and am quite familiar with PFAS regulation, though my knowledge is a little out of date concerning treatment. There are a couple of thoughts about this approach.
Scale - They already mentioned it as a POU device which, fine, whatever, more money for private corporations instead of you know, regulating PFAS producers. The idea of using this at scale is fascinating but I have my doubts. RO is already adopted by some large water systems and it's hugely expensive, energy hungry and has some side effects which include.....
Disposal - This is removal, not destruction. PFAS is notoriously difficult to destroy. There is evidence demonstrating that conventional treatment media (think powder activated carbon) can actually release PFAS into the air when PAC is renewed. Second, if used at scale, there are disposal requirements that I imagine no one is willing to tackle. Who in their right mind is going to try to figure out how to deal with a concentrated waste stream of PFAS coming from a water filtration plant producing 100 million gallons per day? In a previous position, we had to tackle how to deal with filter sludge that was bright red due to ferric sulfate added during the coagulation step (i think it was ferric). That stuff is relatively harmless but looks insane. Imagine the opposite where you have a harmless looking waste stream filled with compounds linked to a bunch of health issues.
Efficacy in real world applications - No water, municipal, bottled, "artisanal spring", is 100% pure nor would you want it that way. Furthermore, there are class of PFAS called short-chain PFAS which can be 4-carbon long. This shit is tiny so if you're filtering out something this small, you're bound to filter out larger substances. I can imagine a world in which these things get clogged fairly quickly
PFAS is an issue, regulating water systems isn't the right answer and until solutions that remove AND destroy PFAS (of which there are thousands of compounds), we're simply playing a shell game except the prize isn't money, it's an early death.
edit : also i can provide links if people want more info, i just didn't want to dig through regs and papers
Comment box
It's nice to see this research. I'd like to see more research on other abundant natural/agricultural/food-grade materials for this purpose. As the article says, silk supply might be insufficient for this to work globally. It would be nice to see multiple natural materials competing for the title of "best PFAS filter".
It sounds kind of complicated to manufacture though.
This is science-gibberish to me. I wonder how strong or long-lasting the filters are. If they end up being extremely cheap, I guess it's okay for them to be replaceable, but anytime we're talking about molecules I get the feeling these technologies are going to be very expensive but also short-lived.
I'd be happy to buy a filter like this for my sink if it were affordable.
So I have quite a bit of experience working in the drinking water industry and am quite familiar with PFAS regulation, though my knowledge is a little out of date concerning treatment. There are a couple of thoughts about this approach.
Scale - They already mentioned it as a POU device which, fine, whatever, more money for private corporations instead of you know, regulating PFAS producers. The idea of using this at scale is fascinating but I have my doubts. RO is already adopted by some large water systems and it's hugely expensive, energy hungry and has some side effects which include.....
Disposal - This is removal, not destruction. PFAS is notoriously difficult to destroy. There is evidence demonstrating that conventional treatment media (think powder activated carbon) can actually release PFAS into the air when PAC is renewed. Second, if used at scale, there are disposal requirements that I imagine no one is willing to tackle. Who in their right mind is going to try to figure out how to deal with a concentrated waste stream of PFAS coming from a water filtration plant producing 100 million gallons per day? In a previous position, we had to tackle how to deal with filter sludge that was bright red due to ferric sulfate added during the coagulation step (i think it was ferric). That stuff is relatively harmless but looks insane. Imagine the opposite where you have a harmless looking waste stream filled with compounds linked to a bunch of health issues.
Efficacy in real world applications - No water, municipal, bottled, "artisanal spring", is 100% pure nor would you want it that way. Furthermore, there are class of PFAS called short-chain PFAS which can be 4-carbon long. This shit is tiny so if you're filtering out something this small, you're bound to filter out larger substances. I can imagine a world in which these things get clogged fairly quickly
PFAS is an issue, regulating water systems isn't the right answer and until solutions that remove AND destroy PFAS (of which there are thousands of compounds), we're simply playing a shell game except the prize isn't money, it's an early death.
edit : also i can provide links if people want more info, i just didn't want to dig through regs and papers