Bonus: Can geckos stick to teflon? (And other questions about PFAS)
Okay, Jam. Today's bonus episode is all about the PFAS.
Jam:Oh, okay.
Melissa:Alright. So we're gonna ask questions about geckos and Teflon. We're gonna ask questions about if plants take in our PFAS and you know? Really? What's the point of them?
Melissa:Are they necessary evils? Are they getting in our water bottles? What's the story?
Jam:Okay. Sounds good.
Melissa:Are you ready?
Jam:I'm ready. Let's do it.
Melissa:Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist. And I'm not. And welcome to chemistry for your life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand understand. Understand, if you can understand that, understand the chemistry of your everyday life.
Melissa:Bonus edition
Jam:Oh, yeah.
Melissa:Key fas edition.
Jam:Man, that that flub really got me off my game.
Melissa:Yeah. It kinda did. It's kind of the irony that it was on the word understand. It's pretty good.
Jam:Yeah. That's true.
Melissa:Okay. So I solicited questions from our listeners just about PFAS. And so this is the sort of tying a bow on our little PFAS series.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So we're gonna talk about, you know, some common questions that weren't already answered in the series about forever chemicals.
Jam:And there were there are quite a few.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And it makes sense because so many reasons to have questions about this very complicated large topic.
Melissa:Yeah. For sure.
Jam:Okay. You ready?
Melissa:I'm ready.
Jam:This first one is from Avishai, one of our patrons in our chem immunity. Here's what I wish I said. I read something today about Teflon that geckos cannot attach to it. And I was thinking, why? Is the rest of this him too?
Melissa:Yes. He wrote his whole his whole theory, and it's really good. So that's why I wanted you to read it.
Jam:Awesome. Classic Abishai having a really good theory. Well, the CF bond is strong because of the high orbital overlap.
Melissa:That's the one we said was the strongest bond in organic chemistry.
Jam:Oh, right. Right. Right. High electronegativity difference creates a charge difference that then attracts again in plus and in and minus. But how would how would that stop the geckos?
Jam:My guess is that geckos use VDW forces.
Melissa:That's Van der Waals forces. Mhmm. I think sometimes van der Waals is used to describe, like, all of the intermolecular forces, but it's London dispersion forces. If you don't remember, you can go back and listen to our geckos episode. Uh-huh.
Jam:Which are mostly based on polarization. But since f is very small, its orbitals are also very small and can't achieve high enough polarization Or adhesion of the gecko.
Melissa:Okay. So this is a 100% correct, but I'm gonna say it again in a way that maybe is a little bit easier to digest Nice. Because you look a little baffled.
Jam:Well, yeah, I mean, it was just, like, written as, like, he knew you'd get it.
Melissa:Yeah. You know? So he is correct. So we talked about this a long time ago. There's 3 different types of intermolecular forces.
Melissa:There's one that has an induced dipole that it's Normally, it's just, like, neutral, but then when it comes into contact with something, it can, like so, say, this my hand is a molecule, and it's all neutral. But if it comes near another one, it's like, you know, negativity can come out, which would push the negativity of the other one away. So now this is positive, and this is negative, and they kind of wanna be near each other just temporarily while they're coming close together. That'll draw them together, and then they'll separate back out. Then there's, like, the permanent dipole that's always partially positive and partially negative, and then the what I used to call the super dipole that's really strong, the hydrogen bonding.
Melissa:So what he is saying is that fluorine is a really small atom, and so it's and it's got such a strong draw of the electrons into itself that it's not really able to do the induced dipole. The fluorine just holds those electrons really close to itself and doesn't let them move around very much. And what's that? That is called as polarizability. So your ability to move the electrons around on that, molecule.
Melissa:We've not really talked about that before, but, essentially, fluorine can't do that very well. So the little trick that the geckos use to try to, you know, induce that dipole onto whatever surface they're using and, like, move the electrons towards them so that they stick or away from them. They can't do it on Teflon, and that's why geckos can't crawl on Teflon.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:I know. I didn't know that before he emailed us.
Jam:Wow. That's so cool And so weird.
Melissa:I know.
Jam:You just wouldn't think I don't know. Like, obviously, it's designed to not allow things to stick to it. You know? But you just kinda wouldn't think that would apply to just a gecko.
Melissa:I know. I know. It's weird because it's not like
Jam:and stuff. It's like, okay. That makes sense. But
Melissa:Yeah. But we have the equal ability to, like like, we can't stick to glass or Teflon.
Jam:You know?
Melissa:So it's like if a gecko can, they should be able to stick to anything that's not to us.
Jam:Right. And in fact, you know, it seems kinda like like, if you just were going based on just what's intuitive and what's not Mhmm. You'd think Teflon kinda has a little bit of, like, a grippiness that feels like Yeah. Versus, like, glass, for instance. Yeah.
Jam:But it's not that. It's molecular. It's not intuitive. It's Yeah. Wow.
Melissa:So that was a cool one, and impressive that Avishai was spot on.
Jam:Seriously?
Melissa:So your fun fact for that is geckos can walk on glass, but they can't walk on Teflon.
Jam:Dang. I'm guessing that means, like if it's vertical. Right? Like, they can fall off across a horizontal piece.
Melissa:Probably could, but it might feel slippery, like, walking on
Jam:ice or something maybe to them.
Melissa:The way that's how ice would feel to us. No traction.
Jam:Interesting. Okay. Next 1. You ready? The next 1?
Melissa:Yes. I'm ready.
Jam:It's from Noel on Instagram. Noel said, what applications of PFAS are there For them to be a sort of necessary evil.
Melissa:I don't know that I think that they are a necessary evil. I don't think we need them. The The world existed before them.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:It is kind of hard to imagine a modern world without them, but I don't think it's impossible. The biggest thing I think that I would actually hurt is is companies. It's so much Cheaper, I think, to use PFAS than to use anything else. And so I actually don't know if it would negatively impact our lives too much, or we think it could just make things more expensive. You know?
Melissa:But, like, what did we wrap fast food burgers in before we had PFAS? We could just go back to that. Was it wax paper, or was it just plain paper? You know? Like, we could easily go back to that.
Melissa:Or, You know, what did we what do we have our water bottles out of before that? I think it was probably primarily glass silicone. We could go back to that. You know? So I feel like we could go back to a world without it.
Melissa:Raincoats. Just make them out of rubber. They're not as as comfortable, you know, as, like it I think it would just hurt conveniences, but I don't think it really is integral to everyday life. It would just make some things less convenient.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And so that might be hard to adjust to for us. The one thing that I was like, maybe this is really helpful is it is a firefighting foam for chemical fires, and I don't know if there's another good way.
Jam:Right. And that's one of those where it's like, yeah, this would be an emergency situation. You are deciding between a fire
Melissa:Which is worse.
Jam:That destroys things and humans
Melissa:Yeah. Yeah.
Jam:Dangerous lives and stuff like that. And then it would be like, okay. Maybe let's use a this this is once. We'll use it. You know?
Jam:Yeah. You You know, with raincoats too, like, a lot of water resistant stuff before, you would you would get some sort of, Farrah, I think I submitted this as a question to you one time. It's a question idea, but, a lot of stuff back in the day would be canvas, and then they wax it. Yeah. They would melt some wax into it, and it kind of forms this new thing.
Jam:But the cool they wet that is you can rewax it.
Melissa:Yeah. So, like,
Jam:yeah, the wax didn't last forever, But you can rewax it, and your stuff will last a long time still. And it's not just worn out once the wax is gone, once that layer is messed up, whatever. So it's not so bad to go back to. It's a little more work, but you know?
Melissa:No. I'd actually prefer that because I got a really nice North Face raincoat, and I feel like it already has lost it's like two and a half years ago before we got married. Uh-huh. Not us. We're not married, me and my husband.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And, It already has lost some of its waterproof, and I'm like, I wish I could just reapply this. But I'm assuming it's PFAS is the thing. And so, like, if some of that has worn away, I don't I don't know how to re up that.
Jam:You know?
Melissa:And it's only two and a half years. I was pretty mad.
Jam:Yeah. It's frustrating.
Melissa:Yeah. I I would prefer a Canvas one that I could rewax. That sounds amazing. Yeah. So, yeah, that's my I don't I don't know that I think that they're a necessary evil.
Melissa:That's my thought.
Jam:How do PFAS get into products that claim or believe they don't have them? Like THINX. What is this? I don't know what Thinx is.
Melissa:I think we talked about it before that there was period underwear that there's a lawsuit.
Jam:Yes.
Melissa:So that's what it is. It's a menstrual underwear that's designed to absorb fluid. And listen, I've always wondered how things really does work because they just show you that it absorbs liquid, but they don't show you how. And I I'm like, as a chemist, I really gotta know. Yeah.
Melissa:But I don't know that PFAS would be responsible for the absorption. It's mostly responsible for the waterproof. So sorry. I stayed up late last night working on a paper. Didn't think I'd be saying that at the ripe old age of 32.
Melissa:So I think that My suspicion is that they are either willfully or truly ignorant to PFAS use somewhere in the supply chain. I think that's how they get away with saying that they don't use Pfas is if they get clothes that are treated or fabric that's treated with it already, and they can just kind of maybe turn a blind eye, or maybe it's not one of the big big four, PFAS, or whatever that they know about. Yeah. So this is a quote from the lawsuit that Thinx recently went through in their settlement. It said that thinks will also take steps to ensure that PFAS are not intentionally added to its underwear at any stage of production and adjust some of its marketing language, including the use of antimicrobial treatments, which might be something PFAS, but not, you know, explicitly.
Melissa:And then it says it will also continue to have suppliers of raw materials, sign a code of conduct, an agreement, attesting that PFAS are not being intentionally added. So I think they could say this is an unintentional product of this other thing we're doing, or, oh, we got it from this person who said they didn't, and we didn't look into You know? We're just gonna have them sign this piece of paper. So that's my guess is they They get it from the supply chain, or they let it be an unintentional addition as a side effect of something else they're doing? I
Jam:right. One of the things one of the areas I've seen this in myself, which is just like one specific. Can I can I share the specific Piece of cookware that I feel like has been deceptive about this?
Melissa:I think so.
Jam:Alright. I
Melissa:mean, I called out North Face and Thinx both in this episode, so we're in it now.
Jam:Fair enough. I'm just not the scientist. So I'm like
Melissa:Just say allegedly. Alright. Alright.
Jam:So I will say this. There are these like, the question is, like, that claim or believe they don't have them. I think the claim part is most the case, and the way they word it is gonna be important because Yeah. What I've seen, get ads for all kinds of cookware probably because they know I'm a die hard cast iron person, and they're trying to trying to get me. You know?
Jam:Yeah. Trying to tempt me. But I've seen ads for hex clad stuff all the time. Have you ever heard of that?
Melissa:No. What is it hex?
Jam:Hex clad. It's a type of cookware.
Melissa:Hex clad? No.
Jam:So what they say is it's it's it's like the best of cast iron Plus, stainless steel, plus blah blah blah. But it has this hexagonal sort of pattern to on it, And that's why they call HexClad. And they've tried to claim it as, like, the best thing ever, and, one of the celebrity chef guys is part of it. Like, Or isn't a lot of their ads. You know?
Jam:Mhmm. But they'll say multiple times, does not include Teflon. Does not have Teflon. Does not have Teflon. But I was like, okay.
Jam:I'm looking at this piece of cookware. And if it's as nonstick as it looks, but it looks like stainless steel with, like, a pattern to it, something's not right here. Like, stainless steel sticks like crazy. Right? Yeah.
Jam:It just does. I mean, you could use some things with oil, but, like, depending on how you cook on them, but still, it's, like, gonna be pretty sticky. And they're showing it like blowing on an on a, semi set up egg and it, like, fluttering around. I'm like, that's just not single seal. Yeah.
Jam:You look into it, and they're using a different PFAS. It's just not Teflon. So they're saying everywhere every chance I get is we are not using Teflon. We are not using Teflon. Does not contain Teflon.
Jam:Yeah. Just a different PFAS that they're using. And And I I mean, that's on their own website. I went and found that out. I didn't look on some other report or journal or something.
Jam:Their own website, if you dig enough, just says, oh, we use
Melissa:Just proprietary.
Jam:A different coding in the valleys of our sort of pattern, the hexagon things fill in with that stuff, and then blah blah. They try to say it might chip less. Maybe that's true, but they still are using Yeah. Some sort of in there.
Melissa:Well and that's reminds me of the BPA, conversation that we had where it's like, what does BPA free even really mean? Kind of nothing because they just replace it with another version of BPA. You know? So Yeah. That actually leads well into maybe we could skip down to, Jess.
Melissa:Just ask a question that kind of goes along with that.
Jam:Do plastic bottles of
Melissa:Oh, no. Wait. Sorry. Tina.
Jam:Oh, Tina. Oh, Jess has multiple, doesn't she? Oh, Tina. There we go. Yeah.
Jam:Can we swap forever chemicals with more sustainable ones?
Melissa:So I think we could, but not in the way that we are just talking about. So I don't think other forever chemicals or shorter ones or, you know, whatever is the way to go. I think it is finding alternatives, like wax on canvas for waterproofing or silicone instead of some, Like, for period products, you can use those silicone menstrual discs or cups Mhmm. Which are gonna be different than the period underwear. And with silicone, you have a lot lower risk that we know of right now.
Melissa:You know? So Yeah. I think it's gonna be, yes. We can swap forever chemicals with more sustainable items, but I don't think there are more sustainable, quote, unquote, miracle chemicals like we thought these were at the time. I think it's gonna be going back to or using technology to find new alternatives to that.
Melissa:Yeah. That's my thought. Because I do think it's gonna end up just like the BPA situation where it's like, oh, well, now we just don't know what the new version of this is doing. You know?
Jam:Right. And you can avoid that whole deal. So, like, if we think it's likely that at some point, they'll be like, hey. The thing we started using instead of BPA Anything following at all.
Melissa:A cast iron pan.
Jam:Yep. Or like
Melissa:A glass
Jam:water bottle. Glass water bottle or a metal one
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:That, you know, isn't coated with something or whatever. It's like unlikely. At least seems less likely. But the whole, like, we just changed a couple things, it's fine. Seems like not like Do you wanna risk it and just expect that it won't have the same thing happen in a couple years?
Melissa:Yeah. So those questions I thought went really well together, actually.
Jam:That's good. K. Now Jess's question.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Do plastic bottles of any kind leach PFAS At room temperature or maybe when heated?
Melissa:Okay. So we actually have a patron who supports the show who also works at a a chemical company where they detect leachable substances. And, that's Latila, so shout out. And so we talked about this some in the BBA episode, but, yes, things can leach into our water, especially when it's heated or left out in UV rays to degrade. But I was like, this is not my area of expertise, but you know who areas of expertise it is?
Melissa:Latila. So I asked. And she said, Short answer, yes. But it also depends on the plastic bottle. If the plastic bottle is made up of 1 of the 4 types of PFAS authorized by the FDA to make plastic food packaging, plastic bottles included.
Melissa:If it is present in the makeup of the container itself, which isn't intentional, these are the result of fluorination treatment, then definitely, yes. It can leach as temperature increases. Otherwise, no. So maybe we one of the things that Latila and I talked about is She just doesn't leave water, like, emergency backup water bottles in her car sitting for her kids. You know?
Melissa:It's like, We can stop and get 1 if we need a water bottle.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:You know? And she used to leave those, like, in case they got thirsty. So and for me, like, I have a plastic water bottle that I use for working out because I don't want it to get knocked over and shatter if it's a glass water bottle or the an open container.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So for that, I try not to leave it in the car. I try not to leave it in the sun. If it's gonna be getting hot or, like, I just try to not let it sit out in the sun. You know, we have, like, I have specific ways where I'm like, oh, I'd rather not just let that sit in the car. Not just because it gets hot, but because what's leaching in there when it's getting hot.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So
Jam:That's good. Dang. Interesting.
Melissa:Thanks, Latila.
Jam:Yes. That's awesome. It's perfect that that question was, like, We're able to get her insight on that.
Melissa:I know. I was like, wow. This is amazing. Yeah. Oh, and Latila also sent me and I just saw it right Before I came to record this episode, so I didn't have a chance to incorporate it.
Melissa:But, news article that there was a makeup company that was being sued for PFAS in mascara. Woah. I was like, man, it's everywhere. Mhmm.
Jam:Dang. Wow.
Melissa:I know. I wonder if
Jam:it's that, like, water resistant, like, mascara.
Melissa:Oh, I wonder if
Jam:it goes. Yeah. Yeah. I had some at one time, and she was like, it's actually Too good. Like, I'm like, when when she was trying to get it off.
Melissa:Say, I'm suspicious. Oh, she couldn't get it off.
Jam:I just can't remember, actually, not think about it. But, anyway, maybe. This next question is from Jess. Is it the same Jess? Mhmm.
Jam:Awesome. Does the groundwater that contains PFAS get picked up by any fruits or vegetables?
Melissa:I hope it's the same, Jess. Now I'm like, uh-oh. Did I accidentally attribute to the same person? Sorry if I did. I'm just honestly doing here.
Melissa:The short answer again on this is yes. They can be taken up into plants. So the best thing to do is to use non plastic rain bill barrels or filter your water with some of the stuff that we talked about on the last episode, but also you can use raised beds with clean soil.
Jam:Oh, yeah.
Melissa:But even then, I was like so this is when you kind of get to be like, this It's too much to think about. My bags of soil come in plastic bags. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, is there PFAS in there. I don't know.
Melissa:And then, like, then also, I started composting because we got a house. And by composting, I inherited it from a friend, is like a plastic thing. So I'm like, is it also just leaching into my soil that I'm composting?
Jam:And,
Melissa:like, it it becomes a problem that's so overwhelming that it's like, how do we even really
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:You know?
Jam:Right. Dang.
Melissa:So, technically, yes, but I don't think that's your biggest worry. And you can look online to see if your water sources are contaminated.
Jam:So that really has come back to that thing of, like, these is we got to rely on these corporations to get their act together.
Melissa:We really do.
Jam:Because then they can provide us with these options that are gonna be PFAS free. It would be, oh, this soil company, they stopped doing that. So now we know if we buy this whole from them, we get this compost bin from this company. But, like, until that day, we are kinda stuck. There were a lot of those decisions that aren't up to us at least.
Jam:It's like, do you wanna compost?
Melissa:So you can vote and try to get Yeah. People to make changes, and that's
Jam:Yeah. And sharing knowledge with your your friends and family. I mean, like, helps too because it's like one of those things that some people just probably have not thought about. Yeah. At all.
Jam:The more of us who are aware about it, the better.
Melissa:Yeah. And I think that's because companies intentionally made us not think about it at all. Yep. So stuff.
Jam:Here's another one from Rachel b. Practically speaking, what products contain PFAS, and how can we swap them out?
Melissa:Well, Well, Rachel, we talked about that some already, but also check out our previous episode, which is what can we do about PFAS, where we talked about what can we do now about PFAS, where we talked about a lot of those things. So yeah. Not a lot as you could just tell from that episode. Yep. So that's all I have for us on our PFAS episode.
Melissa:Thank you so much to all of our listeners who submitted those questions. Those are really helpful, and It is interesting to see y'all are thinking about PFAS. And, like, you know, you're asking those questions is really fun.
Jam:Yeah. It's It's cool because, obviously, we're doing we normally do, like, a q and r with a bunch of questions about a bunch of things, but it's cool to have this many questions about 1 topic. Yeah. That's awesome. So thank y'all for sending those.
Jam:These are great.
Melissa:They really are awesome.
Jam:Time to wrap up?
Melissa:Time to wrap up.
Jam:Well, as you guys know, most of them have a lot of ideas of topics of chemistry in everyday life, but we love hearing from you guys, getting y'all's questions just like what made up this entire episode. Y'all has really good questions. And, I mean, how did that P Fest series start? Didn't it start with some questions from somebody?
Melissa:Yes. It started with a question and a request from my friend, Sarah.
Jam:There we go. So questions are super helpful, so please send this to us if you have any on our website at kimforyourlife.com. That's kimforyourlife.com to share your thoughts and ideas. If you'd like to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the Picasso of making it, you can go to patreon.com/kim for your life or tap the link in our show notes to join our for cool Kim unity of patrons. But if you're not able to do that, you can still help us by subscribing on our favorite podcast app, rating and writing a review on Apple Podcasts, And also subscribing to our YouTube channel.
Jam:Those things all help us to share chemistry with even more people.
Melissa:This episode of chemistry free life was created by Melissa Colini and Jam Robinson. Jam Robinson is our producer, and the episode was made possible by our financial supporters over on Patreon. It may means so so much to us that y'all are willing to make chemistry test accessible to even more people and let people like Avishai submit questions and keep our content going. So thank you to those supporters who are Avishai B, Brie M, Brian K, Chris and Claire S, Chelsea B, Derek L, Emerson W, hunter r, Jacob t, Christina g, Katrina h, Latila s, Lynn s, Melissa p, Nicole c, Rachel r, Steven b, Shadow, Suzanne p, Timothy p, and Venus r. Thank you again for everything you do to make chemistry free life happen.
Jam:And if you like to learn more about today's chemistry, lessen the interest of these questions, we have some resources in our show notes And in the description of the video that you can check out.
Melissa:Yay chemistry.
Jam:Yay chemistry.
Melissa:Boopee fast.
Jam:Just thinking the same thing. I I was like, after she says it, maybe I'll say that, and then you just totally did it. Like, boopie pass.
Melissa:That's funny. Yay. That was a fun that was a fun episode.
