Forever chemicals in green tech: Are PFAS essential for the energy transition?

From solar panels to wind turbines, batteries and hydrogen cells, many renewable energy technologies driving the energy transition share a common ingredient: a class of man-made substances known as "forever chemicals."

The group contains 10,000 synthetic chemicals also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which persist in the environment and can take thousands of years to degrade.

Widely detected in drinking water, exposure to certain levels of PFAS is linked to increased risk of cancer, suppressed immune function, decreased fertility and developmental delays in children.

These health impacts have inspired bans on well-publicized sources of toxic PFAS such as clothing waterproofing sprays, Teflon non-stick cookware, firefighting foam, packaging and cosmetic products.

While recent bans in France, New Zealand and Denmark target specific PFAS used in consumer products, the European Union wants a broader ban.

The thousands of forever chemicals the EU proposes outlawing includes fluoropolymers, which are valued for their resistance to extreme temperatures, corrosion and UV degradation, and are present in numerous green technologies from lithium-ion batteries to solar panels.

In EV batteries, for example, binders created with PTFE fluoropolymers — also found in Teflon products — are used to coat dry electrodes for greater energy efficiency.

The chemicals industry has pushed back against Europe's mooted ban. An alliance of the world's leading chemical companies, the Performance Fluoropolymer Partnership (PFP) says health concerns about "some types of PFAS" are leading to "unwarranted restrictions" on fluoropolymer production and use.

In a statement on its website describing fluoropolymers as "critical in the fight against climate change," the PFP stated that any bans would "hamstring our climate and energy goals by possibly making the transition more expensive or simply impossible."

Are PFAS necessary to fight climate change?

PFP members include the chemicals arm of US multinational conglomerate, 3M — which is being sued more than $2 billion by the Australian government for its firefighting foam that has leached forever chemicals into the environment — and the Chemours Company, which manufacturers Teflon and was established by chemicals powerhouse, DuPont.

The European Environment Agency says these polymers are considered "relatively less problematic" than the building blocks for PFAS known as monomers. This is due to a larger molecular size that "limits their uptake into living cells" and potential toxicity.

Yet fluoropolymers still degrade over time, raising "additional environmental and human health concerns," according to the agency. Experts say these polymers will inevitably emit PFAS during their life cycle and enter the environment — and living organisms — through weathering and physical stress over long periods.

"I don't think we're going to solve the climate crisis by getting cancer," said Gretchen Salter of US-based Safer States, which lobbies to safeguard the environment from toxic chemicals. "You can't demonstrate that these chemicals aren't going to do harm."

"Since chemical makers cannot escape the fact that these types of PFAS are harming our health, they are trying to claim that they are necessary for the clean energy transition," Salter said, adding that research shows how PFAS themselves fuel climate harm and toxic pollution.

The petrochemical industry accounts for 30% of global industrial energy demand — which is higher than the iron, steel and cement sectors — and generates 18% of the industrial sector's greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, chemicals used to produce everything from pharmaceuticals to fertilizers, plastics, paints, electronics and cleaning products are responsible for around 6% of global emissions.

Salter said PFAS categorized as fluorogases (F-gases) are also being marketed as "climate-friendly" since they are used for clean tech like heat pumps, and in electric car batteries. But PFAS gases, though largely non-flammable, are "now the largest source of PFAS pollution globally," she said.

This is partly due to their global warming impact, which is potentially thousands of times higher than carbon dioxide. F-gas leaks can happen throughout a heat pump life cycle via worn seals and improper maintenance and end-of-life disposal. F-gases are also present in fridges and air-conditioning units as a synthetic coolant, where they can leak too.

Are there PFAS-free green tech alternatives?

According to UK-based Chem Trust, which advocates for safer alternatives to toxic chemicals, a suite of PFAS-free clean energy technology is already on the market, including for heat pumps that are being rolled out across Europe as part of a transition from gas heating.

Instead of relying on F-gases, propane is just one alternative energy efficient refrigerant for domestic heat pumps, and with the right design has a negligible fire risk, notes a 2025 Chem Trust report.

The group also says several companies are now producing solar cells without fluoropolymers. Equally, polymer paint that protects wind turbine blades and makes them more efficient is available PFAS-free.

"We are seeing more companies in the EU and across the world embrace the challenge of developing PFAS-free green technologies," said Shubhi Sharma, scientific researcher at Chem Trust, in a statement.

But plastics and chemical lobby group Plastics Europe released an assessment report of PFAS-free substitutes in May that argued that "in many critical uses" such as transport, electronics and semiconductors, these alternatives are "either not available or simply do not match the necessary criteria to be considered a viable alternative to fluoropolymers."

Salter of Safer States said efforts to exempt so-called critical and low concern PFAS from class-wide bans means "destroying any sort of incentive to switch to safer alternatives."

"As long as the chemicals industry insists that there are no alternatives, there will be no market to develop any," said the campaigner.

Chemours insists its fluoropolymers and F-gases are "made and used with minimal environmental impact," and says it will achieve a 99% PFAS emissions reduction in the manufacture of fluorinated organic compounds by the end of the decade compared to 2018.

Liz Hitchcock, director of the federal policy program at US environment nonprofit, Toxic-Free Future, told DW that the extreme persistence of PFAS in the environment will inevitably lead to human exposure.

"We've heard claims that there are better PFAS, there are safer PFAS, but we haven't seen the proof."