The price of clean water: environmental, economic, and human health implications of PFAS treatment

Licentiatavhandling, 2026

This thesis examines the use of innovative technologies to treat PFAS-contaminated water and assesses the associated environmental, economic, and human health costs.

First, a literature review and a meta-analysis of published studies are conducted. The meta-analysis consolidates current knowledge on environmental and economic performance of innovative technologies used to treat PFAS-contaminated water. The analysis aims at offering new insights into the climate impacts per gram of PFAS treated and the annual capital and operational costs per volume water treated. The results show large variability in climate impacts, ranging from 0.1 to 70,190 kg CO2 eq./gram of PFAS treated, largely driven by differences in raw water concentrations. The economic analysis shows that operational costs span from $0.03/m3 to $28/m3, while capital expenditures range from $0.01 to $0.51/m3 of water treated and exhibit some economies of scale.

From the literature review, methodological limitations in published LCA studies are identified and critically examined to inform and support the development of more robust and comprehensive future LCA studies on PFAS treatment. The analysis specifically examines the extent to which toxicity-related impacts were addressed and characterized in the reviewed LCA studies. Results show that many studies on PFAS treatment do not fully capture the entire life cycle, often overlooking key fate and exposure pathways. Technologies like granular activated carbon (GAC) filters and ion exchange (IEX) resins mainly transfer PFAS to waste streams rather than eliminate them, yet LCAs frequently assume complete destruction and ignore residual emissions and disposal impacts. Additionally, the lack of appropriate characterization factors (CFs) for PFAS limits accurate toxicity assessment, leading to inconsistent methods or omissions. As a result, current LCAs tend to underestimate the true environmental and health impacts of PFAS treatment systems.

Second, a case study is conducted. Five innovative treatment trains (TTs) for PFAS removal from drinking water in Sweden are assessed and compared regarding their environmental and human health impacts. Each treatment train was divided into: (1) pre-treatment (for technologies used previously to the one designated for PFAS removal); (2) PFAS removal (for technologies capable of transferring PFAS from the contaminated water to either solid media or a waste stream, such as GAC, membranes, IEX and FF, including transportation of used media); (3) post-treatment (to ensure that the final drinking water of all TTs has the same characteristics and quality, remineralization and pH adjustment are implemented when needed in addition to disinfection); and (4) PFAS destruction (for technologies that utilize either high temperature alone or a combination of high temperature and pressure to mineralize PFAS compounds, such as reactivation of GAC, and incineration of spent media or waste). The analysis is intended to support informed and transparent decision-making in the design and implementation of PFAS removal strategies in drinking water treatment, and to guide policies on PFAS restrictions. The results indicate that contributions to environmental impact categories vary across the TTs depending on the technologies applied. However, PFAS removal step is the main driver of environmental impacts overall, largely due to its requirements for chemicals, materials, and energy. Post-treatment processes can also contribute significantly, while PFAS destruction generally has a smaller impact, except when GAC reactivation is performed.

Finally, a net human health benefit (NHHB) approach is developed and tested in the case study to serve as a methodological contribution and a complement to the traditional LCA. NHHB is applied to assess whether the avoided PFAS-4–related human health impacts achieved through water treatment outweigh the life cycle impacts induced by DWTP operations, thereby determining whether PFAS removal provides a net human health benefit relative to a no-treatment scenario. This knowledge could not be captured by the traditional LCA. In the NHHB analysis, to enable a more comprehensive evaluation of the potential range of impacts from direct PFAS ingestion through drinking water, two characterization factors (CFs) are calculated and applied based on effect factors (EFs) derived from (1) repeated-dose rodent studies and (2) epidemiological data extrapolated to non-cancer human lifetime equivalent.

The NHHB results are highly sensitive to the CF choice. With rodent-based cancer and non-cancer human toxicity CFs, treatment burdens outweigh benefits, while epidemiological non-cancer human toxicity CF indicate net health benefits. Although treatment reduces exposure, it shifts impacts upstream via energy, chemicals, and materials production. These findings suggest that prioritizing policy changes focusing on preventing problems by enforcing comprehensive restrictions on PFAS may be more sustainable than relying on downstream water treatment.