Microbes can degrade the toughest PFAS

Engineers now report selective breakdown of a particularly stubborn class of PFAS called fluorinated carboxylic acids (FCAs) by common microorganisms. Under anaerobic conditions, a carbon-carbon double bond is crucial for the shattering the ultra-strong carbon-fluorine bond by microbial communities. The resulting products could be relayed to other microorganisms for defluorination under in aerobic conditions.