Ensuring business continuity in the era of PFAS
Hazard-based chemical screening is helping engineers get ahead of PFAS regulation before it forces a costly product redesign There is a familiar pattern in product development that engineers know all too well. A material or part gets approved and added to a specification. It performs well. It passes every regulatory screen on the books. The product ships. It is reused in more designs. Then, two years later, a substance in that formulation ends up on a restricted list. Suddenly, the engineering team is back at the drawing board, under real pressure, reverse-engineering decisions that were made when no one had reason to question them. This form, fit, and function cycle is not an engineering failure. It is a failure of strategy and infrastructure. With PFAS, the speed and velocity of these failures are accelerating to unprecedented levels. The PFAS regulation wave is already here, but is far from over Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) represent one of the most complex regulatory challenges manufacturers have faced in decades. The class encompasses thousands of individual chemicals, many …
