system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
As coffee grounds are adsorbent, does the process of making coffee remove pollutants (such as PFAS) from water? If so, to what extent compared to charcoal filtering?

The question occurred to me the other day when I noticed that the heavy chemical odor and taste of water in my city isn't detectable (to me) in coffee. I know that heating the water causes some of the treatment chemicals to evaporate out of the water, and that PFAS have a higher boiling point than water and thus are not eliminated via heating, but I'm also wondering how much of the bad stuff gets adsorbed by the coffee grounds. I couldn't find any studies, and the former use of PFAS in disposable coffee cups creates a lot of false-positive google searches. Any thoughts?
gpt
To some extent, passing water through any absorbent material will reduce the amount of pollutants in it, but the extent depends heavily on how porous the filter substrate is and how finely ground it is.

Charcoal filters work by having incredibly high surface area to volume ratios, and the carbon actively bonding with pollutants, so compared to their ability to capture things coffee's effect is negligible.

It's more likely that the reason you don't taste the chemical taste of treated water in your coffee is that the taste of coffee is so strong it masks it.