Scientists have invented a new way to destroy toxic substances known as “forever chemicals” that have become widespread in waterways around the world, presenting risks to human health and biodiversity, reports a recent study.In recent decades, scientists have discovered that PFAS take an extremely long time to break down in water, a problem that has led to global contamination of groundwater, rainwater, drinking water, and other systems.Exposure to PFAS has been linked to ecological damage and a host of human health problems, including certain cancers, which has galvanized researchers across many fields to find new ways of removing these toxic chemicals from water systems.Now, scientists at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), have presented ”a promising platform to treat PFAS-contaminated drinking water sources” that uses hydrogen and UV-light to obliterate some of these chemicals, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials Letters.“We are optimizing it by trying to make this technology versatile for a wide range of PFAS-contaminated source waters,” said study author Haizhou Liu, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering at UCR, in a statement."