An international team of researchers, including from Korea, has developed a technology that can remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), known as "forever chemicals" because they hardly degrade in nature, much faster than existing methods.
A team led by Kang Seok-tae, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), said on the 30th that, together with Kim Geon-han, a professor at Pukyong National University, and Michael S. Wong at Rice University in the United States, they developed a technology that can adsorb and remove PFAS in water up to 1,000 times faster and more efficiently than conventional water treatment materials. The findings were published online on Sept. 25 (local time) in the international journal Advanced Materials.
PFAS are a group of chemicals consisting of bonds between carbon and fluorine, with excellent insulating and heat-resistant properties, and are widely used across industries in frying pan coatings, waterproof clothing, lubricants, semiconductor processes, and military and aerospace equipment. However, during use and disposal, they can easily leak into the environment, polluting soil, water, and air, and accumulate in the human body through food or air. PFAS accumulated in the body are hardly excreted and can cause a range of health problems, including reduced immunity, dyslipidemia, stunted growth, and kidney cancer.
The joint team created a new material that can rapidly adsorb PFAS by using a clay-like substance in which copper and aluminum are combined. The material removed perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a type of PFAS, within minutes, showing a rate about 100 times faster than activated carbon and about 10 times faster than ion exchange resins.
To verify practical applicability and selectivity, experiments were conducted on solutions with added PFOA under various water quality conditions, and the results showed that the material could deliver at least 70% of its performance even when various organic substances were present in the water, as in treated sewage.
The researchers went a step further and developed a method to safely destroy captured PFAS through heat treatment. When the PFAS-saturated material was heated at high temperature together with calcium carbonate, more than half of the captured substances were converted into chemically stable compounds without the emission of toxic gases. In this process, the material was regenerated and could be reused at least six times.
Professor Kang Seok-tae said, "This achievement will be the world's first eco-friendly and sustainable solution in the field of PFAS removal, providing an integrated capture–pyrolysis–regeneration pathway for PFAS."
References
Advanced Materials (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202509842