John Washington co-authors publication in "Science" highlighting PFAS the "forever chemicals"

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are products of the modern chemical industry that have been enthusiastically incorporated into both essential and convenience products. Dubbed “forever chemicals” because of their innate chemical stability, PFAS have been found to be ubiquitous environmental contaminants, present from the far Arctic reaches of the planet to urban rainwater.

Oluwaseun Adeyemi (current graduate student in the Department of Geology) is currently working with Dr. John Washington (co-author, Research Chemist at USEPA, and Geology Adjunct Professor) performing mineralogical research on soil samples from agricultural fields that have received applications of biosolids that are high in PFAS. Waste-water treatment plant biosolids are widely applied to agricultural fields as soil amendments across United States. In recent years, it has been discovered that these biosolids often are high in PFAS.