Chemical waste · aqueous environments · 2026
Forever in the Water.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — PFAS — are the most persistent chemical waste of our era. They flow from foam, factory, and frying pan into rivers, fish, dolphins, and us. This is the chemistry of how AFFF (a type of PFA) happens, and what we can do about it.
- ≈ 12 000+
- PFAS compounds catalogued
- 485 kJ/mol
- CARBON-FLOURINE BOND ENERGY
- 3.4 yr
- PFOS serum half-life in humans
- 4.0 ng/L
- EPA LEGAL STANDARD FOR PFOA & PFOS
Why this topic
Designed to last forever — and that is the problem.
The carbon–fluorine bond is the strongest single bond in organic chemistry. Industry built useful molecules around it — non-stick coatings, water-repellent fabrics, firefighting foams. The same bond that makes them useful makes them indestructible in nature.
Once released, PFAS travel as charged anions through groundwater, concentrate in fish liver and serum proteins, and biomagnify into top predators including humans. They are now detectable in the blood of essentially every person on Earth (CDC NHANES, 2018+).
This site focuses on a single source — aqueous film forming foams (AFFF) — and follows it through three affected systems: rainbow trout, bottlenose dolphins, and the human population of Parkersburg, West Virginia.