A study published in Science in August 2022 indicated that perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) can be mineralized via heating in a polar aprotic solvent such as dimethyl sulfoxide. It reported that heating PFCAs in an 8 to 1 mixture of dimethyl sulfoxide and water at  in the presence of sodium hydroxide caused the removal of the carboxylic acid group at the end of the carbon chain, creating a perfluoroanion that mineralizes into sodium fluoride and other salts such as sodium trifluoroacetate, formate, carbonate, oxalate, and glycolate. The process does not work on perfluorosulfonic acids such as PFOS. A more recent study published in Chemical Science shows breakdown of C-F bonds and their mineralization as YF or YF clusters. Another study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society described the PFAs breakdown using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).