Jane Edwards
Battelle developed a closed-loop, on-site platform designed to destroy per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or “forever chemicals” in contaminated water and conducted a pilot demonstration of the technology in early March at a wastewater treatment facility run by Heritage-Crystal Clean in Michigan.
The Battelle PFAS Annihilator Mobile Unit can break down PFAS chemicals to non-detectable levels in contaminated water using the supercritical water oxidation process, the nonprofit research and development company said in an April 27 news release.
“In this pilot we saw the Battelle PFAS Annihilator demonstrate the ability to reduce total PFAS in landfill leachate to single digit concentrations with no adverse byproducts in the treated water,” said Amy Dindal, PFAS program manager at Battelle.
PFAS chemicals are used in stain-resistant textiles, non-stick cookware, food packaging, paint and other industrial and consumer products but are capable of resisting water, heat, grease and oil, making them hard to eliminate from the environment.
“We’ve successfully demonstrated this technology can be brought to a facility that processes waste materials, set-up in a few hours and destroy PFAS chemicals in the presence of other co-contaminants,” Dindal added.
Battelle is building the next iteration of the mobile unit that can destroy PFAS chemicals in industrial-size containers of wastewater.
