If you've used non-stick cookware, worn waterproof clothing, or eaten food wrapped in grease-resistant packaging, you've come into contact with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of compounds so durable they're known as "forever chemicals."
Their carbon-fluorine bonds are among the strongest in chemistry, which is great for making pans non-stick, but is impossible to break down in the environment.
That durability has a human cost. An estimated 200 million people — roughly the population of Brazil — drink water contaminated with PFAS. And it's not just people living near factories or airports. PFAS have worked their way into ordinary municipal water supplies through industrial runoff, firefighting foam, and landfill waste. They have no taste, smell, or visible trace, yet exposure has been linked to thyroid cancer, immune disorders, and developmental delays in children.
Leading the effort to destroy these harmful chemicals for good is Assistant Professor and emerging scholar in Mechanical Engineering at NYU Abu Dhabi, Safiya Khalil Alhashmi, one of a growing number of Emirati women driving research with global impact.
From capture to destruction
Khalil’s research focuses on eliminating perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), one of the most widely studied PFAS compounds found in drinking water.
Her work, which is licensed to Coflux Purification Company in the US and has also entered commercial use, uses a light-driven catalyst and photoreactor system to destroy PFOA at the molecular level, achieving up to 99.8 percent elimination without generating secondary contaminants.
Now, Khalil and her team are testing covalent organic frameworks, or COFs, to capture and break down PFOA. Existing treatments such as activated carbon, ion-exchange resins, and membranes remove PFAS from water, but they leave behind contaminated filters or concentrated waste that still requires disposal.
“Capture moves the contaminant from one place to another. Destruction ends the problem,” Khalil explains.
Currently, the team is investigating whether light can activate the chemistry needed to break down PFAS. Its system combines a light-absorbing photocatalyst with a reactor that carefully controls how the catalyst, light, water, and contaminants interact.
Using a continuous-flow microreactor, the researchers rapidly produced a series of COFs and found that one, FrCOF-4, could capture and begin breaking down PFOA.
In early tests, FrCOF- 4 captured most of the PFOA and began breaking some of its strongest chemical bonds. It did not destroy all of the pollutants, but it acted faster and required less light energy than titanium dioxide, a commonly used photocatalyst. It also remained stable during treatment, an important requirement for practical water-treatment systems.
The study is the first reported successful use of a COF as a light-activated catalyst for degrading PFOA, providing proof of principle that carefully designed materials could help destroy persistent contaminants more quickly and with less energy.
The team will next use artificial intelligence to identify materials and treatment conditions that achieve more complete degradation.
"The approach could become transformative if we demonstrate that light-driven chemistry can achieve meaningful molecular breakdown under substantially milder conditions than some energy-intensive destructive treatments," Khalil says.
The researchers also plan to work with water utilities, environmental authorities, technology providers, and industrial operators to test the system in real water, assessing continuous operation, catalyst recovery, safety, cost, and scalability.
Although the technology is still in development, a practical reactor that destroys PFAS, rather than transferring it into another disposal stream, could reduce long-term chemical exposure and hazardous treatment waste, helping make water treatment safer for the communities that depend on it.
Science as a unifying force
For Khalil, the goal extends beyond the lab bench. She strongly believes that every project is built on shared ideas, shaped by people of different cultures and backgrounds.
"Science is one of the most powerful unifying forces we have,” says Khalil, who was also recognized by Fast Company Middle East as one of the Most Creative People in Business 2026.
“It demands rigor, but it also demands imagination, and the willingness to pursue visions that may initially be dismissed as improbable or premature, yet ultimately create new technologies, new markets, and new possibilities.”
That conviction traces back to her upbringing. “My mother always taught me that women often carry a million roles at once, and that strength lies in holding them with integrity rather than perfection,” she adds.
“My father taught me that a sharp, principled mind can build an empire, but brilliance without substance or purpose is easily wasted. Those lessons stayed with me: ambition matters, but what truly defines us is what we choose to stand for, and which ideas we are willing to carry forward as scientists, leaders, and mentors for the next generation."
