A critical review of the methods being proposed to solve the PFAS problem in drinking water: Are they practically applicable in real world?

Abstract

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are hardly degradable and persistent chemical compounds being detected all over the world and becoming more and more relevant while preparing drinking water. The existing techniques used for PFAS removal from water are effective, but they have a lot of limitations that hinder their wide and easy large-scale application. Up to date, a lot of newly designed methods have been suggested and investigated to remove PFAS from drinking water. However, although the achieved results of PFAS removal and/or decomposition efficiency are usually quite positive, a detailed analysis of experimental conditions is often required to evaluate the practical applicability of the proposed methods. Practical applicability is determined based on both technical possibilities and economic feasibility for large-scale applications. Today, the main focus of environmentally oriented scientific research should be directly related to real-world applications. Therefore, this article aims to provide a detailed review of the methods being proposed for PFAS removal from the applicability perspective and identify the main limitations hindering the wide exploitation of these PFAS removal techniques. This review article will help both scientists and engineers to focus on solving the most relevant problems that should be considered to make practical application possible. Some methods which are out of competition from both technological and economical point of view can be just rejected.