‘Forever chemical’ bans face hard truth: Many can’t be replaced
‘Forever chemical’ bans face hard truth: Many can’t be replaced
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.
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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.
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.
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.
Just because PFAS is one way doesn't mean there aren't other things that would work.
I really hope there are others. I haven't heard of alternatives yet.
Regulate it and the ev car manufacturers will spend the money to find one.
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).
Electrical fires don't generate their own oxygen.
Good thing a lithium fire isn't an electrical fire then, isn't it?
I don't know that it is a good thing. It just means you can't use baking soda to out it out.
Well, normal electric fires don't but, as @Vodik_VDK@lemmy.world already quoted, lithium-ion battery fires do generate their own oxygen
That was my point to. I guess I wasn't clear enough.
Wouldn't it just be better to cure cancer? Why don't the scientists just do that?
The big one is airplane fires, AFFF is the best foam for putting out a jet fuel fire.
Sand. You use sand.
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...
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
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.
Yes ideally they should just stop. However, there are things that have changed since the 1940s.
A lot of technology is based on plastics being available and will require a complete redesign to work without it.
Also ordinary stuff f.i. rain jackets, cookware and cleaning products. All of these could be replaced with whatever people used beforehand, but one reason why plastics has been used so widely is because it's a cheap biproduct that could replace more expensive and more energy intensive productions. F.i. imagine if we had to replace all hard plastic casing with ceramics, glass or steel. That would require a lot of furnaces to run on coal. Multiply this with the increased population since the 1940s and it might very well just cause a different environmental disaster.
Cast iron pans work great, you can even use them on your induction stove and they heat way better than any expensive non-stick. Waxed canvas is also excellent at waterproofing. We do have solutions already for many things. Your plastic argument as well. The types of plastics the complaint is about is for specific products, not all of them. I work in manufacturing and the availability of safe materials are plentiful as science keeps looking for new ways. People just have to stop buying new things to throw perfectly good and usable ones in the garbage. It would go a long way.
Yes absolutely. Reuse is the second best step of the" reduce, reuse, recycle, reclaim" cycle of materials.
All I'm saying is that if everyone needs durable quality products, then we're facing a different material problem than what plastics are doing. Plastic is used because it's a cheap biproduct. Cast iron is not, and we can't replace all plastics with iron, glass or stone without also damaging the environment in other ways.
Personally I think plastic wrapping is better place to start. Why not use paper, cardboard or another biodegradable material for wrapping.
furnaces to run on coal
If only there was a way of avoiding coal furnaces! I have this freaky idea from this sparky rock I found. It might be related to those times when the sky gets angry and makes loud bangs and flashes.