PFAS immobilization with soil amendments - How immobilized is immobilized?
Juhasz AL, Cáceres T, Jones R, Kastury F, Seeborun M
Phytoremediation
Vegetables grown in soil near old fire-training sites or airports may still take up PFOS even after remediation treatments that look successful on paper.
Firefighting foam has left a toxic chemical called PFOS soaked into soils at many military bases and airports. Scientists tested a product meant to glue PFOS to soil particles so plants can't absorb it. It helped somewhat, but the chemical could still escape when it rained or when soil conditions changed, meaning 'treated' soil isn't necessarily safe for growing food.
Key Findings
RemBind®300 applied at 5% by weight reduced plant uptake of PFOS from contaminated soil, but did not permanently bind the chemical in place.
PFOS concentrations in the test soil ranged from 750 to 7,455 micrograms per kilogram, reflecting real-world contamination levels at AFFF-impacted sites.
Leaching experiments showed that water and changing soil chemistry could remobilize previously 'immobilized' PFOS, raising questions about long-term containment reliability.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers tested a commercial soil amendment called RemBind®300 to lock down PFOS—a toxic 'forever chemical' found in firefighting foam—in heavily contaminated soil. They found it reduced how much PFOS plants absorbed, but the chemical wasn't truly immobilized: rain and soil chemistry could still release it over time.
Abstract Preview
In this study, the efficacy of RemBind®300 (applied at 5% w/w) to immobilize perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) in AFFF-impacted soil (750-7455 μg PFOS kg
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