POPFREE - Promotion of PFAS - free alternatives
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB - Kemi, Material och Ytor, Stockholm |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 9 999 138 |
| Project duration | November 2017 - March 2020 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | Challenge-driven innovation - Phase 2 Collaboration |
| Call | Challenge-driven innovation - Stage 2 Collaboration 2017 (autumn) |
Important results from the project
POPFREE aims at promoting the use of PFAS-free alternatives by developing viable alternative solutions, raising awareness and educating customers to choose PFAS-free products. During the project, criteria for alternatives were set up and several solutions were evaluated in lab scale and for the most promising ones, at pilot level. Several communications activities have been conducted to raise awareness among different industry sectors as well as among consumers. POPFREE has also contributed to several reports and workshops to influence upcoming legislation.
Expected long term effects
In this second stage, several alternative solutions have been developed and tested at lab and pilot scale. Awareness among consumers and along the different value chains considered in the project has been raised as indicated by the increased number of requests for PFAS-free alternatives experienced by our industrial partners. Participation in POPFREE has also led to new collaborations between our partners and several industrial partners have decided to implement a faster strategy to phase-out PFAS from their products.
Approach and implementation
The project was built as a matrix with six product cases running across the 7 workpackages. With 29 partners, POPFREE has required a strong project management, which was made possible through a team development effort performed at project start. Overall the project has run as planned and several alternatives are now ready to be evaluated by end-users. Synergies between product cases with respect to technical solutions were not as strong as expected at start due to the specificity of every case requiring unique solutions as well as confidentiality issues between partners.