As lawmakers around the world weigh bans of 'forever chemicals,” many manufacturers are pushing back, saying there often is no substitute.

As lawmakers around the world weigh bans of 'forever chemicals,” many manufacturers are pushing back, saying there often is no substitute.

  • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
    465·
    1 year ago

    Humans existed before these compounds were created. One of the ones mentioned in the article PFAS were first created in the 1940s.

    So my question would be, what did we use in their place before that?

    And what will happen if we stop using them.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.world
      322·
      1 year ago

      One of their uses is in firefighting chemical fires.

      When an electric car is on fire, you need PFAS to stop the lithium fire. Water just can’t stop it.

      Of course, before batteries we used gasoline.

      I imagine their might be more of these cases where modern technology relies on unsustainable practices.

      • Vodik_VDK@lemmy.world
        8·
        1 year ago

        TheConversation.com

        Another factor that makes lithium-ion battery fires challenging to handle is oxygen generation. When the metal oxides in a battery’s cathode, or positively charged electrode, are heated, they decompose and release oxygen gas. Fires need oxygen to burn, so a battery that can create oxygen can sustain a fire.

        Because of the electrolyte’s nature, a 20% increase in a lithium-ion battery’s temperature causes some unwanted chemical reactions to occur much faster, which releases excessive heat. This excess heat increases the battery temperature, which in turn speeds up the reactions. The increased battery temperature increases the reaction rate, creating a process called thermal runaway. When this happens, the temperature in a battery can rise from 212 F (100 C) to 1,800 F (1000 C) in a second.

      • dan1101@lemm.ee
        6·
        1 year ago

        Just because PFAS is one way doesn’t mean there aren’t other things that would work.

          • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
            2·
            1 year ago

            So for electrical fires, they use carbon dioxide to smother the fire and sodium bicarbonate to aid in putting it out, along with class c fire extinguishers. Class c are just carbon dioxide.

            For chemical fires, carbon dioxide extinguishers are also used. They can use extinguishers with bromochlorodifluoromethane, aka Halon 1211, (which I guess could be a pfas chemical, but I don’t find anything either way).

        • Haywire@lemm.ee
          24·
          1 year ago

          Wouldn’t it just be better to cure cancer? Why don’t the scientists just do that?

      • Knightfox@lemmy.oneEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        The big one is airplane fires, AFFF is the best foam for putting out a jet fuel fire.

    • burchalka@lemmy.world
      281·
      1 year ago

      If that means we’ll have to forfeit the use of, for example computer systems, or some actually vital modern infrastructure - I don’t think we’ll agree to the ban.

      On the other hand if their use is unavoidable, for any valid reason - there should be sufficient effort in recycling them…

      • PupBiru@kbin.social
        91·
        1 year ago

        recycling, containment, disposal… i’m pretty sure forever chemicals aren’t actually forever: put enough energy into them and we can probably make them no longer forever chemicals… it’s only a problem because we don’t contain and process them

    • Richard@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      1 year ago

      Use your brain for once and realise that there weren’t modern electronics in the 1940s, and without these compounds, we couldn’t have useful computer systems now.