A New Way to Tackle PFAS Waste Emerges

Researchers suggest grinding spent carbon could destroy PFAS, hinting at a cheaper, simpler way to manage a growing waste problem

16 Jan 2026

In laboratories at Clarkson University, researchers are attacking one of America’s most awkward pollutants with little more than force. Instead of burning PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals, at extreme temperatures, they are grinding them up.

PFAS are best known for what they resist: heat, water and chemical attack. That stubbornness has made them useful in everything from firefighting foams to non-stick pans, and a menace once they seep into drinking water. Utilities have rushed to install treatment systems, most of which rely on granular activated carbon to trap the chemicals. Yet once the carbon is saturated, the problem merely shifts location.

Disposal has become the weak link. Spent carbon is typically incinerated or buried, both costly and controversial options. Transporting it over long distances raises fees and attracts local opposition. Regulators, meanwhile, are tightening standards, leaving utilities with growing piles of contaminated media and few good ways to deal with them.

Mechanical milling offers a counter-intuitive answer. By repeatedly grinding spent carbon, researchers hope to break the strong carbon–fluorine bonds that make PFAS so persistent. The process runs at room temperature and uses no added chemicals. Its appeal lies less in what it does than in what it avoids: no furnaces, no reagents and no smoke stacks.

For now, the idea is experimental. Early tests suggest that milled carbon no longer releases PFAS under landfill-like conditions, hinting that the chemicals have been neutralised rather than merely displaced. Scaling the technique up, however, remains uncertain, and it sits well outside current guidance from America’s Environmental Protection Agency.

Still, even tentative progress is welcome. Utilities are racing to comply with new federal and state limits while investing in systems meant to last decades. Water-technology firms have expanded their PFAS offerings, yet disposal remains a stubborn bottleneck. As one environmental analyst puts it, “This approach targets one of the biggest pain points in PFAS management. Removing PFAS from water is only half the battle. The waste is where costs and risks pile up.”

Mechanical milling is no silver bullet. It will not make PFAS disappear overnight, nor will it suit every site. But it points to a different endgame, one in which contaminated materials are treated where they sit, rather than shipped out of sight. For an industry short of permanent answers, that alone makes the grinding worth watching.