Water sampling across the Finger Lakes is helping Cornell researchers investigate where PFAS contamination occurs, while related engineering work aims to identify unfamiliar compounds, capture them from water and reduce their use in manufacturing.
The efforts reflect the difficulty of addressing a large family of persistent chemicals rather than a single pollutant, according to Cornell's report on researchers working on the problem.
The work was described in the institution's report.
Local samples help guide broader predictions
Damian Helbling, a Cornell professor of civil and environmental engineering, is involved in the Finger Lakes PFAS Project, which collects water samples throughout the region and makes the resulting data publicly available online.
That local work helps researchers understand how contamination differs across watersheds and where further investigation may be useful.
Researchers also are using artificial intelligence to forecast where PFAS are more likely to be present by combining information about potential sources and environmental conditions.
Such a forecast identifies places that may warrant sampling; it does not establish that a particular household's wate...