Read the full article by Zak Dahlheimer (WTKR)
“…Meanwhile, in California, there may be a solution to PFAS chemicals.
‘I think this is really a breakthrough,’ said Haizhou Liu, Associate Professor in the University of California, Riverside’s (UCR) Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. ‘It’s cost effective, energy efficient, and a green technology without addition of additives, and doesn’t lead to formation of toxic byproducts.’
Liu and others at UCR have been studying PFAS chemicals.
This past November, Liu and others published new methods that chemically break up PFAS chemicals in drinking water into smaller, harmless compounds.
‘This technology basically takes light… and shining on water,’ Liu said. ‘When we shine the light on water, we’re basically introducing a type of energy to water.’
‘If you think about the PFAS as the particles on the floor when you’re cleaning, and you use a strong vacuum, and then you suck them up into the vacuum, our technology not only sucks them up into the vacuum, but more so, creates a system where the particles will be completely destroyed, and you have clean air coming out of it,’ Liu added.
Liu told News 3, within this process, the PFAS chemicals are converted into fluoride.
‘We add fluoride in our toothpaste to protect our teeth,’ he said. ‘This is a classic example of where we can convert a toxic chemical into a health additive chemical that can be beneficial to health.’
According to Liu, his team tested this technology with a capacity to handle less than one gallon of water in the lab.
Ferrara said this research leaves him hopeful, but he wants to see it tested in a larger sense.
‘How effective is this process going to be on a macro scale? On a large scale,’ Ferrara said.
Liu said his team is working towards that in the next steps, hoping to scale out their technology to work on larger amounts of water at water treatment plants and military bases.”…