Dr. Detlef Knappe’s water testing research featured in NC Health News article

Dr. Detlef Knappe

A recent article from health care nonprofit NC Health News highlights CCEE professor Dr. Detlef Knappe’s work with water testing and and research on filters designed to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) compounds from drinking water. 

The story focuses on the PFAS contamination of the Cape Fear River Basin in Brunswick County, North Carolina. The basin provides drinking water for nearly 1 million North Carolinians. The article says a possible solution has emerged to combat the pollution in drinking water: Skokie, Illinois-based company Cyclopure has partnered Durham-based National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) to develop a PFAS filter designed to work with Brita water pitchers.

Knappe is designing a study to test the Cyclopure PFAS filter that will involve households receiving a regular Brita pitcher and a Brita pitcher with the PFAS filter. The participants would send water samples over a certain time period to NC State to be tested by Knappe’s lab.

“We’re probably making it a community engaged project where we’re recruiting somewhere on the order of 10 households,” Knappe said in the article, “most likely down in the Wilmington area, because there’s a larger variety of PFAS in the water.”

“I’m interested in looking beyond PFAS … every drinking water has things in it like disinfection byproducts, and maybe some pesticides and other things,” Knappe said. “In the end, we want a filter that is really effective against the broad spectrum of different things that are in the water.”

Read the full story here.