EN 
DE PFAS - the "eternal chemicals" have recently become the subject of increasing public debate. In a recent study by the German Federal Environment Agency, for example, they were found in the blood of up to a quarter of young people in Germany in worrying concentrations. The PFAS substance group can be detected not only in urban areas, but also in remote regions such as mountain lakes and rivers, including the animals and plants living in them. Positive findings for this group of substances can even be found on Mount Everest. They can also be found in the fatty tissue of polar bears at the North Pole. Depending on the region, contaminants are even present in our drinking water. Due to the widespread use of PFAS since 1940, they have apparently already penetrated almost every corner of our world and therefore represent a serious environmental risk.
Patrick Byrne, an expert on environmental pollutants at Liverpool John Moores University, even goes so far as to describe PFAS as "the most likely chemical threat to humanity in the 21st century". But what are PFASs anyway? And what need for action is associated with our decades-long use of these substances?
Thanks to their advantageous properties of repelling dirt, grease and water, odourless and colourless PFAS (perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl substances) are an essential component of many of today's production chains. They can be found in everyday life, for example in packaging such as pizza boxes or coffee cups, in impregnating agents for outdoor textiles or in coated cooking utensils. Older fire extinguishing foams and sludge from paper production also often contain high concentrations of substances.
Precipitation as well as water and air can spread the hardly degradable substances in the environment, which can then continue to accumulate and thus pass into the fauna and, to a lesser extent, the flora.
As described, the substances do not stop at humans and other living beings and accumulate in proteins in the blood through various pathways. There they can have serious effects. For example, they are suspected of influencing liver and kidney functions or reducing the effect of vaccinations. Furthermore, potency and various health effects on babies, such as reduced birth weight and an influence on the onset of puberty, cannot be ruled out. Last but not least, the substances are suspected of being pathogens for various types of cancer.
Recently, some EU member states called for a comprehensive ban on the use of the entire group of substances in the EU in order to counteract the insufficiently controlled use of the substances to date. The draft, which is to be reviewed by the EU Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in March 2023 for compatibility with EU law, would lead to an almost complete ban on the use of PFAS within the EU. This could prevent an additional estimated 4.4 million tonnes of PFAS from polluting the environment over the next 30 years. Nevertheless, PFAS that have already been released into the environment represent a major challenge for the future due to their extremely difficult remediation.
To tackle this challenge, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research launched the joint project "FABEKO " project. In this project, M&P Ingenieurgesellschaft and other project partners are researching a future-orientated and sustainable remediation process for PFAS.
