[HN Gopher] New study finds significant amount of HFO degradatio...
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New study finds significant amount of HFO degradation product in
drinking water
Author : doener
Score : 82 points
Date : 2022-05-29 11:21 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hydrocarbons21.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hydrocarbons21.com)
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27351319/
|
| This summarizes the dangers of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). It's a
| small polar compound that has low potential for toxicity. I mean
| not great that it is in drinking water but in the grand scheme of
| things it could be much worse.
|
| >As an acid or as a salt TFA is low to moderately toxic to a
| range of organisms. Based on current projections of future use of
| HCFCs and HFCs, the amount of TFA formed in the troposphere from
| substances regulated under the MP is too small to be a risk to
| the health of humans and environment.
| hackernewds wrote:
| The article quotes low to moderate risk, an acceptable
| threshold is no to very low risk. Also the existence of TFA in
| drinking water is a much larger concern than TFA in the
| troposphere
| kurupt213 wrote:
| These things go straight through most wastewater treatment plants
|
| This is what should be getting the outrage that carbon emissions
| get
| macinjosh wrote:
| Another regulatory blunder by the EU. They forced the use of
| these chemicals.
| Glawen wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they didn't force these chemicals, but instead
| banned CFC and HFC. The industry came up with HFO
| SoftTalker wrote:
| How often do we see the pattern:
|
| Industry invents A, which is useful but has bad side effects
| causing A to get banned. Industry invents B, which does the
| same thing, maybe not quite as well, and with its own bad
| side effects, and might be chemically very close to A, but
| it's technically not A so it can be sold. B gets banned.
| Repeat.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Yeah, obviously we should just keep drinking from lead
| pipes to avoid this exact scenario. /s
| snaptarns22 wrote:
| You prove GP's point. If the EU regulatory experts are so
| smart they can tell everyone else what to do perhaps they
| should have mandated a safe chemical.
|
| You can't take responsibility for something, enforce changes,
| and then say you're not responsible for the outcome. They do
| this all the time, see cookie banners.
|
| Governance like this creates problems instead of solving
| them.
| DFHippie wrote:
| > If the EU regulatory experts are so smart they can tell
| everyone else what to do perhaps they should have mandated
| a safe chemical.
|
| > You can't take responsibility for something, enforce
| changes, and then say you're not responsible for the
| outcome.
|
| Demonstrating that a particular chemical has particular bad
| consequences is a lot easier than inventing a replacement.
| Are you saying regulatory agencies shouldn't exist unless
| they can replace the industries they regulate?
| [deleted]
| dontbenebby wrote:
| I still remember someone from Belgium or whatever slipping up
| they know more about 412 pipes than they should.
|
| Ban these chemicals, and stop insisting folks forced to drink
| lead water learn exploit development to get a living wage.
| jokoon wrote:
| > The study acknowledged that there is currently little to no
| data about long-term exposure of ultra-short chain PFAS like TFA.
|
| That's a bit worrying.
|
| Although I don't know how expensive and difficult it would to
| make sure this would be safe to drink, and what toxicologists
| need to do to properly test those chemicals.
|
| Sometimes I wonder, how do researchers in toxicology try to
| explore chemicals that have not been tested yet. Most of the
| time, the company who makes those chemicals have the money to
| test them, but when they find a problem, they make sure to not
| tell anyone, and just "advise" to use chemical A or B this way,
| but not this way.
|
| And that's how the roundup problem came to happen, because users
| were not told to use a moderate amount, because the companies
| failed to properly warn the public.
|
| It guess those small chemicals can't be filtered by carafe/brita
| filters?
| DennisP wrote:
| The whole process seems fairly inconsistent with the lengthy
| precautions we take before introducing new lifesaving
| medicines.
| djmips wrote:
| Holy TLA's Batman. I'm going to need an acronym glossary to
| decode this article.
| ars wrote:
| I don't understand how:
|
| "TFA's reaction with bases and metals, especially light metals,
| is strongly exothermic."
|
| and:
|
| "TFA is virtually non-degradable (persistent) in the
| environment."
|
| Can both be true. There are trace amounts of metals in sea water,
| and in soil. It might take some time, but the TFA will encounter
| the metal, and if it's that reactive, it should react with it,
| even at low concentration. It should make a metal fluoride.
|
| What am I missing?
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| A question I have is what is today's lead?
|
| Maybe lead is a bad example, because it was known to be bad for a
| long time... But what is the thing that looking back will turn
| out to be horrible for us and pervasive in the environment?
| Aloha wrote:
| I suspect nothing - Lead is unique in that the cognitive
| effects of exposure can cause societal collapse if widespread
| enough.
|
| We have other environmental contaminants that are _bad_ but
| broadly, they don 't have the cognitive effects of Lead -
| biologically you can survive lead exposure - meaning you wont
| die - but the cognitive exposure of Lead in my opinion puts it
| in a category of its own.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Phthalates seem to have similar society-collapsing potential
| through population decline. Different mechanism but I'm not
| sure the outcome is different in a meaningful way.
| TSiege wrote:
| I'd say micro plastics and other related chemicals like PTFEs.
| They're incredibly common and found throughout the human body
| and in every ecosystem. I have a feeling a lot of modern
| diseases, the ones relegated to "developed" countries are
| created or exacerbated by plastic chemical pollution. We know
| they can disrupt hormones and who knows what else. Worst of all
| they're impossible to avoid
| [deleted]
| tikkun wrote:
| Here are a few candidates:
|
| 1) Environmental contaminants in water, food, and air
| https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/13/a-chemical-hunger-p...
|
| 2) Xenoestrogens in plastics, pesticides, toiletries, perfumes,
| polyester and nylon clothing
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3947648/
|
| 3) Mass consumption of pharmaceutical drugs
|
| 4) Vegetable seed oils https://chriskresser.com/how-industrial-
| seed-oils-are-making...
|
| 5) Sugar and hyper palatable foods
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/25/book-review-the-hungry...
|
| 6) Endemic pathogens like toxoplasmosis
| https://www.hardtowrite.com/pathogens/
| cinntaile wrote:
| 4) needs a better source. He apparently has a history of
| claiming things not backed by science.
|
| https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Chris_Kresser
| SoftTalker wrote:
| He does sound a bit "out there" but mainstream science says
| that vegetable/seed oils are safe to eat, so anyone who
| says they are not is going to be "anti-science."
| notahacker wrote:
| There are plenty of mainstream science studies on oils,
| not all of them favourably disposed, and "is ingredient x
| bad for you" has never been something that's been
| difficult to get mainstream funding for. If it was the
| case that the only indication of negative health
| consequences of cooking oils came from an "out there"
| self-publicist that would be a [weak] prior in favour of
| the safety if oils, not a reason to pay particular
| attention to the "anti-science" arguments of the "out
| there" guy on this topic.
| californical wrote:
| I've read #1 and #5 so far, and they were both fascinating.
| Thanks for sharing this! I figure the actual answer is a
| combination of many things, but reading each of these little
| pieces is really valuable info.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Plain old atmospheric CO2. We've upped the amount in our
| atmosphere to well over 400ppm. Drowsiness becomes noticeable
| at over 1000ppm but with the now higher atmospheric CO2 and the
| fact that many of us now live and work indoors where poor
| ventilation can increase CO2 levels you have a recipe for
| subtle cognitive problems similar to what lead caused.
| joenathanone wrote:
| I wonder if these are removed by reverse osmosis, but I also
| wonder if my reverse osmosis system is unknowingly adding
| anything to my water.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I would think an activated carbon filter might grab them, but
| having some trouble finding an definitive statement on that.
| brilee wrote:
| HFOs are third generation refrigerants, replacing HFCs, which in
| turn replaced CFCs.
|
| In 1985, CFCs were recognized as destroying the ozone layer, so
| they were banned in 1989 and replaced them with HFCs that didn't
| do that.
|
| The problem with HFCs was that they have 5,000-10,000x greenhouse
| warming potential relative to CO2. So in 2006 the EU mandated
| that cars replace HFCs with less potent substances. After 10
| years of development and testing, HFOs were finally phased into
| usage, with most cars using HFOs in their air conditioning.
|
| Heat pumps and HVAC units seem like they're a decade behind
| autos, but their HFCs should likely be replaced with HFOs, too.
|
| The TFA comes from atmospheric degradation of these HFOs.
| Scaremongering about TFA without the counterbalancing story of
| why TFA is showing up and the decades of social, political, and
| technical work behind HFOs, pisses me off to no end.
| kurupt213 wrote:
| These are precursors or degradation products for a lot more
| than refrigerants and propellants.
|
| - Any nonstick or stain resistant coating (scotch guard
| /Teflon)
|
| - Chemically inert Polymers for fixtures in chemical reactors
| (more PTFE variations)
| gennarro wrote:
| Yes, most hvac and refrigeration units are a generation behind,
| so perhaps the issue will only grow with time. More info:
| https://appliance.report/gwp/
| coryrc wrote:
| Just use propane. This bullshit with inventing ever more
| elaborate synthetic compounds which turn out to be toxic has
| got to stop. We should be denigrating "the decades of social,
| political, and technical work behind HFOs".
| dashundchen wrote:
| I think the future refrigerant for many applications is CO2,
| with a global warming potential of 1.
|
| Volkswagen put heat pumps with CO2 based refrigerant in their
| latest cars.
|
| Japanese company Sanden makes components for CO2 based heat
| pumps and compressors.
|
| https://www.sanden.co.jp/english/products/car/lineup/CO2-Com.
| ..
|
| Project Drawdown estimates addressing the emissions of
| refrigerants to have one of the biggest impacts on climate
| change.
|
| https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I wonder what is the advantage of those complex compounds
| (CFCs, HFCs, HFOs) when compared to CO2.
|
| EDIT: Well, duh, answering my questions after a quick
| search, CO2 liquefies in a much lower pressure than most
| gases.
| colechristensen wrote:
| In short, the energy efficiency of moving heat depends on
| the working fluid.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Actually CO2 works very well, but you typically run it in
| a transcritical cycle where there is a gas cooler instead
| of a classical condenser unit.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Yeah, natural refrigerants are the way - CO2, hydrocarbon
| gases, ammonia (in industrial settings), water/steam, and
| air - these can pretty much cover the entire temperature
| range that you will ever need in heat pumps.
|
| The natural refrigerants are indeed becoming increasingly
| popular. Essentially all new supermarket refrigeration
| systems in Europe are CO2-based nowadays, as an example.
| And almost all domestic fridges are using isobutane,
| freezers are using isopentane.
|
| Unfortunately there is a large push behind synthetic
| refrigerants, because there is a large industry who makes
| money off selling these compounds and would like to keep it
| that way.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Do refrigeration engineers really fall prey to "big
| pushes" when everything they need to know about a gas is
| represented in those charts they use?
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| In general you need to build the whole heat pump (incl.
| compressor) for the specific refrigerant and application
| you have in mind.
|
| So if you have an existing line of products using
| synthetic refrigerants, and a dozen factories around the
| world making those, you might very well choose to listen
| to a manufacturer of synthetic refrigerants pushing a new
| fancy one, rather than decide you need to re-engineer all
| your products for natural working fluids.
| serf wrote:
| kick-backs that produce inter-corporate relationships are
| vast and numerous.
|
| if X engineer is treated to a real nice dinner and game
| tickets by Company Y representative , very few charts
| will sway their opinion.
|
| tl;dr : most corporate products are not shaped purely by
| economic and efficiency metrics.
| usrn wrote:
| I'm still not convinced propane/butane makes sense in
| automotive ACs.
|
| EDIT: because it ignites during accidents.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Need to get the operating pressure of CO2 down.
| coryrc wrote:
| The pressure is intrinsic to the compound. It cannot be
| lowered.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| TIL, thank you!
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Many things can ignite during accidents, such as the 10-20
| gallons of gasoline in an average automobile tank. The
| tanks tend to be pretty well protected, and an air-
| conditioner condensor is normally at the very front end of
| the car, but that design could be changed.
| ars wrote:
| There's around 3lb of it, around half a gallon equivalent
| of gasoline.
|
| That's not nothing, but it's not that much that we should
| be extremely worried - there's around the same amount of
| fuel in the various lines running from the gas pump to the
| engine.
|
| It also helps that as a vapor it will dissipate very
| quickly.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Yeah, I don't really know that much about refrigeration, but
| that's my take as well. If I had a choice, I'd just run all
| my stuff with propane, but I don't really know how feasible
| that is - could I just jury-rig up some hoses and go around
| charging things? Or are there parts of the system that won't
| abide by that?
|
| I believe the stated rationale against propane is
| flammability, but is that really that much of a concern?
| Presumably you aren't mixing oxygen and propane in the
| system, so basically you've just got propane lines
| circulating in your house/car. Big whoop, I've got methane
| lines in my house already, and the car has plenty of other
| flammable things too.
| coryrc wrote:
| > but I don't really know how feasible that is
|
| Only if they run similar pressures. R-22 is basically the
| same pressure as R-290 (propane) but all the newer stuff is
| much higher. I think that means it ends up icing over
| really quick.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| A propane/isobutane blend is a good replacement for R-12
| which was the refrigerant used for air-conditioning
| before CFCs were banned. Straight propane as you note is
| better for freezers than air conditioners.
|
| A problem with blended refrigerants is that if there is a
| slow leak the blend will change as the refrigerant leaks
| out, due to the different partial pressures. That makes
| recharging more difficult, you basically have to vacuum
| out the system and recharge with the correct mixture.
|
| Also, propane and isobutane are both flammable, but other
| than CO2, most refrigerants are to some degree.
| Aloha wrote:
| Some of them produce quite nasty byproducts when they
| burn too.
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