Prof. Selma Mededovic Thagard: Plasmas for Water Purification

Clean drinking water is a basic requirement and many would argue is a basic right. Unfortunately, many sources of drinking water in the US and worldwide are contaminated by people-produced chemicals which are highly persistent in the environment. How do you remove these harmful chemicals from water in a manner that can scale to the huge volumes required to supply cities?
Prof. Selma Mededovic of Clarkson University is performing ground-breaking research in the use of atmospheric pressure plasmas to clean ground water contaminated with a class of compounds called PFAS (perfluoroalkyl substances). In this video, Prof. Mededovic will describe the basic plasma processes that can remove PFAS from water, and how to scale those processes to treat large volumes of water.

[@RustyPenny79]

Would you care to explain the mechanism of breaking up the PFAS substance with plasma and the kind of residues remain in water after treatment?

[@mathewjoshy9774]

!!!!!!!!

[@sd89]

I find questionable saying plasma as an only other remediation for removing PFAS. I believe there’s microbes that were found to remove up to 60% at Princeton. This is very interesting research that looks like the results are sooner at the appropriate treatment levels needed. I just wanted to point out there’s a great deal to research for the forever chemical remediation in other aspects. Thank you for a informative video I look forward to learning more!