"Currently, the standard approach to PFAS cleanup involves excavating the affected soil. The costs can be astronomical: One estimate for the contaminated soil on a 100-acre dairy farm in Maine ran upward of $25 million. Using plants, Huff said, can cost 75 percent less at least. That’s not to say plant-based PFAS removal comes cheap exactly: Soil testing can cost anywhere from $250 to $600 per sample. And for any given field, samples at multiple points across the field are needed to measure progress, especially as PFAS levels can vary from spot to spot within the same parcel of land.

Huff, who has studied various grasses and trees’ ability to extract PFAS, said plants work best when the contaminant levels are lower and the cleanup area is larger — around two acres or more. By that measure, most farms would be considered large projects.

And size isn’t the only limitation — phytoremediation takes more time compared to other approaches." - https://grist.org/science/pfas-is-contaminating-farms-can-hemp-help/

Bioremediation

Pseudomonas (a genus of Gram-negative, Gammaproteobacteria)

"Indigenous bacterial species isolated from PFAS-contaminated environments have shown the ability to remediate PFAS compounds; two strains of Pseudomonas (PS27 and PDMF10) were able to remove 32 and 28% of PFAS compounds, respectively, within 10 days of incubation under alkanotrophic conditions (Presentato et al., 2020). Further, a decrease of around 32% in PFAS was also reported during a 96 h incubation of Pseudomonas parafulva (Yi et al., 2016) along with a 67% decrease in PFAS concentration over 48 h incubation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Kwon et al., 2014). In another study, Pseudomonas plecoglossicida utilized PFAS as an energy source, producing perfluoroheptanoic acid and releasing fluorine ions as a result (Chetverikov et al., 2017). A recent publication reported that following incubation of the ammonium oxidizing bacterium, Acidimicrobium sp. strain A6 with hydrogen as the sole electron donor for 100 days a 60% reduction in PFAS concentration was observed..."

Below are the reported abilities of promising microorganisms currently under investigation:

Mycoremediation

(This section is edited to include additional links in text which were not part of the original paragraph.)

"White-rot fungi in particular have displayed relative success in terms of the biotransformation of organic toxicants, including polychlorinated biphenyls, organophosphate pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (Kaur et al., 2016; Stella et al., 2017; Harry-Asobara and Kamei, 2019). There are very few studies examining their ability to degrade PFAS. Tseng et al. (2014) reported some promising preliminary results looking at the effects of wood-rotting fungus on 6:2 FTOH, using the ligninolytic fungi, Phanerochaete chrysosporium. P. chrysosporium was capable of transforming 50% of 6:2 FTOH and 70% 8:2 FTOH in 28 days. Major metabolites of 6:2 FTOH included 5:3 polyfluorinated acid (40%), 5:2 FTOH (10%), PFHxA (4%). In contrast, the non-lignolytic fungus Aspergillus niger was unable to transform 6:2 FTOH over 35 days. while the same study reported that P. chrysosporium was capable of transforming 20% PFOS within 28 days. However, this research was conducted in a laboratory; it remains to be determined whether ligninolytic fungi are capable of degrading PFAS in the environment."

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7817812/

Phytoremediation

This is the use of plants to absorb dangerous materials including heavy metals and PFAS. Where land is polluted, the ground water generally is to, which may put restrictions on water use, meaning plants watered and intended to remove PFAS may require water to be shipped in from elsewhere.

"Future studies will also need to develop guidelines for how people should dispose of the PFAS-laden plants once their job is done. That could entail drying first to reduce the sheer mass", Huff said. "The key is safely discarding waste to avoid creating another mess." - https://grist.org/science/pfas-is-contaminating-farms-can-hemp-help/

Wetland Pants

This paper explains that "Phytoremediation of PFAS is a possibility and both PFOA and PFOS can be taken up by plants from soil [9] and from hydroponic cultures [10]. There were measurable contents of PFOS and PFOA in the vegetative parts of the plants also after treatment in very low levels of PFOA and PFOS in the medium. More of these substances was found in roots than in shoots [5]. Pilot studies with wetland plants showed that roots of four different aquatic plants species absorbed PFOS and PFOA from water [11]. Up to 82 and 95 % of PFOA and PFOS, respectively, were removed from the water 15 days after treatment. Authors claimed that phytoremediation and soil sorption were the best methods to remediate PFAS. Recently, Wang et al. [12] claimed that submerged plants had higher bioaccumulation factor of PFOS and PFOA than emergent plants collected from a wetland with PFAS polluted water.

Treatment of PFAS contaminated water using plants will decrease PFAS in the water and there are various possible ways it can be performed. Plants may excrete enzymes or promote microbial production of enzymes that degrade PFAS in the water. They can remove PFAS or the degraded PFAS compounds from the water by uptake. In the tissue, PFAS or the degraded compounds will either be accumulated or degraded by the use of cellular or extra cellular enzymes. Both laccase and peroxidase were shown to degrade PFOA [13,14], and those enzymes were produced in the plants and were used in cell wall polymerization and lignin synthesis [15]. These enzymes can be found in the rhizosphere [16]."

The study tested the following plants which have been listed below from most to least effective according to the test results.

Click the photos to learn more about each species. Check to make sure plants are native before planting them, or you make introduce invasives.

Enzymes

So far the information I've found on this subject seems to suggest this as a secondary step after phytoremediation, as a method to break down the chemicals absorbed by the plants, splitting the PFAS into fluorine gas and carbon dioxide which could be used as an industrial ingredient. Studies on this topic are ongoing with organizations including the University of Virginia.

Blood & Plasma Donations

Studies have found that "Regular Blood Donations Have a Strange Hidden Benefit We Never Knew About".

"The researchers tested 285 firefighters working at the ​​Fire Rescue Victoria service in Australia, who donated both blood and plasma over the course of 12 months. Firefighters are routinely exposed to PFAS via firefighting foam, and typically have higher levels in their blood than the general population. "The results from the study show both regular blood or plasma donations resulted in a significant reduction in blood PFAS levels, compared to the control group," says haematologist Robin Gasiorowski, from Macquarie University in Australia.

Organizations

North America

 USA

Maine

• The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) "Join MOFGA in fighting to protect farmers across the United States and take action against the continued spread of PFAS on farmland today!"

Grants & Funding

North America

USA

Minnesota

• Capital Project Grants "are designed to support final engineering and construction of large-scale, innovative projects that protect or improve water quality and habitat within the MWMO watershed. The MWMO provides both technical and financial assistance to eligible projects. (Smaller-scale projects may be eligible for a Stewardship Fund Grant.)"