Prairie Research Institute scientists are leading a cross-disciplinary team awarded a $1.6 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant to investigate crop plant uptake of forever chemicals and develop innovative techniques to reduce their entry into the food chain.
The grant is part of a $15 million effort, awarded to 10 institutions across the country, for research to reduce exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also called PFAS, and to “protect our farmland and farming communities.”
Wei Zheng, a principal research scientist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, will lead the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign project, which will focus on gathering data to understand the risks of irrigation using sewage effluent, provide science-backed information to regulators, and explore ways to reduce PFAS entering the food chain from land-applied sewage effluent and biosolids.
"PFAS, often called 'forever chemicals,' may be linked to harmful health effects," said Wei Zheng. "Consuming PFAS-contaminated food and water are two primary exposure pathways. Our project aims to minimize PFAS contamination from effluent and biosolids land application, helping to mitigate PFAS accumulation in our bodies."
The three-year project will benefit from the work of ISTC research scientists John Scott and Nandakishore Rajagopalan; DoKyoung Lee, the Jack A. and Marjorie S. Cavanah Professor in Plant Breeding and Genetics and a bioenergy crop agronomist in the Department of Crop Sciences at the U. of I.; Yuejie Men, a professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside; Amelia Cheek of the Illinois Farm Bureau; and Olawale Oladeji of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.
Zheng is also on the team for another project receiving one of the EPA grants led by The University of Utah, studying similar issues with a closer look at wastewater treatment processes and biosolids management related to PFAS.
PFAS make up a class of more than 5,000 compounds that are water- and oil-repellant, reduce friction, and resist degradation. PFAS have been available for a variety of uses, including in consumer products, since the 1940s, according to the EPA.
“Given the persistence and health impacts of PFAS, it is important to understand how these chemicals accumulate in agricultural plants and animals, potentially contaminating our food supply,” according to an EPA news release announcing the grants. “Identifying, characterizing, and understanding PFAS uptake within agricultural environments will provide vital information on how exposure takes place and will help inform the development of solutions to reduce PFAS exposure.”
The project will use lab and field experiments to examine how PFAS chemicals are taken up and stored in crops, specifically, those grown in tile-drained fields irrigated with wastewater from rural sewage systems. The project will explore what happens to PFAS after biosolids are applied to soils — the physical and molecular mechanisms that govern PFAS uptake, translocation, and accumulation in plants. Importantly, the project also aims to reduce PFAS in the food chain by developing innovative mitigation techniques using two types of designer biochars to prevent PFAS uptake by crops.