Track-PFAS: PFAS inventory for risk assessment in water treatment works: sources, equilibrium and exposure routes

This is a highly interdisciplinary project to discover and quantify the critical per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) in the water cycle.

Per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) are thousands of pervasive chemicals that have been uncontrollably released to the environment well beyond the safety limits.

Water utilities are facing critical challenges to maintain a reliable water supply in a climate emergency and ever-demanding water quality standards, as they aim to achieve a long-term understanding of the magnitude of PFAS problem and associated risks.

Here, we aim to determine the processes that control the environmental transport of PFAS chemical mixtures in the water cycle.

The researcher will use advanced and state-of-the-art analytical tools to identify and quantify PFAS in different media. This project will involve working closely with water treatment works and our industry partner, WTW.

The results from this project will be ground breaking and enable the development and implementation of PFAS-focused risk assessments.