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October 25th, 2024
Research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has found that 98 percent of people tested had detectable levels of PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” in their bloodstream. This chemical contamination of our air, water, and food is a rapidly growing, worldwide problem, and it seems like every week brings more bad news about the scope and toxicity of the harm being caused by the widespread use of PFAS. PFAS chemicals are present in a wide range of everyday products, like cosmetics, food packaging, water-resistant clothing, firefighting foams, and antistick coatings for cookware. To date, some 57,000 U.S. sites contaminated by these chemicals have been identified.
But amidst all the doom and gloom, research also continues on ways to combat these chemicals, and a recent development provides a possible cause for hope. MIT researchers have developed a new filtration material that may provide a nature-derived solution from silk and cellulose. Early work shows that this material can remove a wide variety of forever chemicals and other contaminants, like heavy metals. Even better, the material has antimicrobial properties that can help keep the filters from clogging or becoming fouled with bacteria or fungi.
The MIT team stumbled upon this discovery serendipitously in attempting to develop a labeling system to counter the spread of inferior, counterfeit seeds by processing silk proteins into uniform, nanoscale crystals and adding cellulose, an abundant material that can be derived from wood pulp waste. Researchers in the lab were able to extract orders of magnitude more of the contaminants from water than the activated carbon or granular activated carbon filters that are the current standard. Researchers contemplate that that material could be effectively utilized for point-of-use filtration at a kitchen faucet, for instance.
While the work on this material to date presents an encouraging proof of concept, more research and testing, particularly in terms of scaling this material for worldwide use, are needed. But at least in the early stages, the work offers promising greenshoots that can hopefully be built upon. In the meantime, if you wish to try and minimize your exposure to PFAS and other harmful contaminants in water, reverse osmosis filtration and the use of glass over plastic can offer some practical solutions today. And if you believe your health has been harmed from exposure to PFAS, you should contact an experienced law firm right away to further explore your rights.
