Researchers have created a potential solution to "forever chemicals" in our water supply, which could go a long way toward cleaning our water of a particularly stubborn problem.
According to Interesting Engineering, scientists at MIT have developed a new material made from silk and cellulose that has shown incredible promise when it comes to removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from water.
PFAS are notoriously difficult to remove from water and don't break down naturally. A 2019 study using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey noted that 98 percent of Americans surveyed had PFAS in their bloodstream.
Led by postdoctoral researcher Yilin Zhang, MIT researchers realized that processing silk into uniform nanoscale crystals — known as nanofibrils — and then combining them with cellulose, a common material found in wood pulp waste, creates a material uniquely well suited to water filtration.
"Contamination by PFAS and similar compounds is actually a very big deal, and current solutions may only partially resolve this problem very efficiently or economically," Zhang said, "That's why we came up with this protein- and cellulose-based, fully natural solution."
On top of being effective at removing PFAS and heavy metals from water, the new material has "strong antimicrobial properties," meaning it can be used for extended periods of time without becoming contaminated and needing to be replaced.
The new material would likely first be used as a point-of-use filter, like one attached to a kitchen faucet or filter jug. In the future, it could be scaled up to municipal filtration systems, but it needs further testing to ensure it doesn't add other harmful chemicals to the water supply while removing PFAS.
College of William and Mary researcher Hannes Schniepp, who was not involved in the creation, praised the innovation for its simplicity.
"In competing approaches, synthetic materials are used — which usually require only more chemistry to fight some of the adverse outcomes that chemistry has produced," Schniepp said, adding that this work "breaks this cycle."
"… If this can be mass-produced in an economically viable way, this could really have a major impact."
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