Read the full article by David Danelski (UC Riverside News)
“A UC Riverside environmental engineering team has discovered specific bacterial species that can destroy certain kinds of ‘forever chemicals,’ a step further toward low-cost treatments of contaminated drinking water sources.
The microorganisms belong to the genus Acetobacterium and they are commonly found in wastewater environments throughout the world.
Forever chemicals, also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, are so named because they have stubbornly strong carbon-fluorine chemical bonds, which make them persistent in the environment.
The microorganisms discovered by UCR scientists and their collaborators can cleave those stubborn fluorine-to-carbon bonds, they reported Wednesday, July 17, in the journal Science Advances.”…