Ep 22 (PFAS Switzerland - Uses of PFAS) Juliane Gluge, Zurich Switzerland PFAS Uses "We found over 200 uses and I identified over 1,400 chemicals that have been applied in these uses"

This is the last episode for 2020, and the podcast will be on a season break, as I take a break and am in production for a new season in 2021 (publishing end of April). Thank you to all my amazing guests in 2020, and to all the listeners who have continued to listen in a very challenging year.

Today's discussion is a fascinating talk with my guest from Zurich, Switzerland. Juliane Gluge and her team spent over a year writing her PFAS Uses paper, "An Overview of the Uses of PFAS," and compiling very detailed extra material to go with her paper. The paper was peer reviewed and accepted for publication in the Environmental Science Processes and Impacts Journal on the 23rd of September, 2020. Juliane is a Senior Researcher in the Environmental Chemistry Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, called ETH Zurich and this is one of the largest universities in Switzerland. She has done her PhD under the supervision of Martin Scheringer. She studied Biotechnology in Germany, so by training is an engineer in biotechology. She is an environmental scientist who has worked on sources, fate and transport of persistent organic pollutants, including PFAS. There are so many PFAS uses that I had no idea about until this discussion, including PFAS in ammunition, climbing ropes, guitar strings, contrast agents in MRI, and other medical applications. Juliane and her team provide three extra ESI - Electronic Supporting Information documents which are well worth a look, especially ESI-1 which expands on the uses listed in the Appendix of her main paper.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and I know you will too, and there will be plenty of information for your to look at while Talking PFAS is on a break. Thank you again for listening.

SHOW NOTES:

Article: 2017, "A Breath of Fresh Perfluorocarbon" by Daniel Carroll with video presentation by PhD student Diane Nelson (Biomedical Engineering) - "Drug delivery to the lungs using Perfluorocarbon emulsions."

https://engineering.cmu.edu/news-events/news/2017/11/20-nelson-perfluorocarbon.html

"Deposition of PFAS 'forever chemicals' on Mount Everest" Kimberley Miner published 17 December 2020

https://umaine.edu/news/blog/2020/12/17/miner-finds-outdoor-gear-forever-chemicals-in-snow-near-everest-summit/