Department Environmental Chemistry

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic chemicals used for decades in industrial and consumer applications due to their valuable properties. Known as “forever chemicals” because of their persistence, PFAS are ubiquitous in the environment leading to exposure through drinking water, food, and dust, posing risks to human and environmental health. PFAS compounds pose a significant challenge to water utilities, as well as to contaminated sites that must prevent their release to the environment.

This project aims to evaluate the performance of a treatment process combining superfine activated carbon treatment with membrane filtration (SPAC-UF) to reduce PFAS contamination in drinking and industrial water. The process will be evaluated at different scales (laboratory and pilot) and compared with established technologies. We collaborate with Membratec Groupe SA, who has developed the SPAC-UF technology for the successful removal of other micropollutants (Bonvin et al. (2021)). At Eawag we have established an analytical method to analyze around 60 PFAS substances with an online-solid phase extraction LC-HRMS method (Chow et al. 2025).