The cleaning of eternity chemicals accelerates

Eternity chemicals is everywhere: in frying pans, furniture textiles, floor waxes, fire retardants, extinguishing foams, water-repellent clothes… They have earned their name because they remain in nature for a very long time without decomposing, some even for hundreds of years.

Eternity chemicals are per- and polyfluoroalkyls, i.e pfas compoundswhich people are exposed to directly from everyday items.

However, most of them end up in our body from food. Eternal chemicals have migrated into food and drink from the environment, where they have been released as a result of the manufacture or disposal of products containing them.

“Many pfas compounds are very soluble in water. That’s why they can spread widely,” says the professor Amit Bhatnagar From LUT University’s Mikkelin office.

“A study from 2022 found alarmingly high concentrations of pfas in rainwater around the world that exceeded safety limits,” he continues.

The worst pollution is near airports and military bases, because they have previously used fire extinguishing foams containing a lot of eternal chemicals. They can also leak into the environment from factories and landfills that manufacture or utilize PFAS compounds.

“In these areas, PFAS compounds can contaminate water resources and soil and pose health risks to nearby residents,” says Bhatnagar.

Excessive exposure to eternal chemicals can, based on research, weaken the effectiveness of vaccines in children, lead to an increase in cholesterol levels and reduce children’s birth weight.

Possible connections have also been found to, for example, reproductive difficulties, hormonal disturbances and some cancers.

There are more than 4,700 different pfas chemicals, and they have been used in industry for over 70 years.

Bhatnagar and other researchers around the world are developing methods to remove PFAS compounds from the environment. Bhatnagar’s group aims to create substances that bind PFAS compounds dissolved in water. Thus, these harmful chemicals could be separated and removed from water at water plants.

The effectiveness of different cleaning methods depends on both the type and concentrations of PFAS compounds and the conditions of the contaminated soil or water.

“We may not get one single way to remove all the different PFAs from water or soil. We probably need combinations of several different methods.”

Some instead of removing eternity chemicals, researchers focus on breaking them down. The durability of Pfas compounds comes from the carbon and fluorine bonds, which are really strong. Therefore, a lot of energy is needed to break them down.

For example, one way is to destroy Pfas compounds from the sludge by using heated and pressurized water. Some other methods use ultraviolet light, plasma or ultrasonic treatment for disposal. However, many methods are considered difficult and expensive to implement.

However, according to Bhatnagar, the most important goal would be to reduce the use of PFAS compounds in industry in general and to find safer alternatives to them. Even if the use of eternal chemicals ends, they have still accumulated in the environment in such quantities that cleaning is needed in any case.

Published in Tiede magazine 8/2025.

Correction 20.10. at 12:31: Changed the main picture of the story. In the previous picture, in addition to the frying pan, there was also a bottle of protective spray. No PFAS compounds have been found in the spray.