Paint in buildings a huge reservoir of PFAS waiting to enter the environment
Painted surfaces in the built environment will likely pose a delayed environmental risk from harmful per- and polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS) decades down the line, according to a new study. The researchers showed that painted surfaces act like a long-lived reservoir, gradually releasing PFAS into the environment across their lifetime, including use, renovation, demolition and disposal, highlighting a need to better understand this underrepresented and delayed source of PFAS emissions to help inform policy, risk assessments and mitigation strategies. PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, are a class of highly-stable fluorinated compounds used for their water- and stain-resistant properties in industrial process and consumer products. But because they are so stable, they persist and bioaccumulate in the environment, with long-term exposure linked to serious health problems. Previous research has tended to focus on the direct release of PFAS from products during manufacture and initial use. But this doesn’t account for emissions during their lifetime, such as from paint in the built environment, which covers huge surface areas and persists for decades. Now, Daqian Jiang at the University of Alabama, US, and colleagues have created a model that has quantified PFAS retention and emissions associated with architectural paints in the US starting...
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