Targeting PFAS surfactants‑free

As a result of collaboration with academia and its raw material suppliers, James Walker has made significant advances in engineering PFAS surfactants out of its fluorocarbon elastomer compounds, ensuring that customers can now be assured of a secure long-term supply chain that is well equipped to address any potential upcoming legislative changes.

In 2023 James Walker commenced a joint research project with the International Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing (IINM), WMG (Warwick Manufacturing Group) at the University of Warwick, aimed at developing sustainable high performance sealing materials.

At that time, with the European Chemicals Agency proposal for a ban on use of all PFAS materials in the European Economic Area and further regulation of PFAS also being assessed by other governments across the globe, the focus of this research project naturally fell to developing alternatives to existing PFAS, and PFAS containing, materials.

Over the last 20 months the research team, working with James Walker material scientists and our materials supply chain, have been using in-house compounding and testing capabilities alongside the IINM’s high throughput techniques to develop, identify and test novel elastomer compounds that target compliance with potential PFAS regulations.

The focus has been to eliminate the existence of PFAS surfactants within compounds and within the manufacturing process. To date the team has achieved this goal across 98% of the James Walker mainstream fluorocarbon elastomer range.

Through the in-house testing carried out so far, the company can show that existing performance levels can be met or exceeded even after the removal of PFAS surfactants. The work now moves on to a new phase of third party testing to Norsok, ISO and API standards as well as starting product configured testing in collaboration with customers.

“The speed of action and progress made towards eliminating PFAS containing surfactants from our compounds has been really impressive. We continue to track the progress of the proposed legislation, although other than seals and sealing materials now being considered as a category in its own right we have seen little in terms of advancement or clarification, which is why we are taking the initiative with our materials development programme to offer our customers a reliable alternative option”, commented Andrew Douglas, Material Engineering Group Manager at James Walker.

“We regard the elimination of hazardous or polluting elements from any manufacturing process as a good thing, so this research project has continued as a priority within our business. Thanks to the hard work of the team, the methodology they have employed and the cooperation of our supply chain, I believe we are seeing some excellent results in the development of material configurations that will ‘future-proof our customers’ projects.

Our progress is helping remove any uncertainty and risk associated with material choice, regardless of the direction taken by potential regulation and legislation. Whether servicing existing applications or working on future projects, we are encouraging customers to talk to our materials and applications engineers to examine the broad spectrum of available options”.