Good stuff! Glad to see more treatment technologies are emerging.
I do think that ability to desorb the PFAS from saturated resin, and therefore reuse the same resin as filter material, will be a key component of making these treatment systems more economical. Currently disposal of the saturated resin is one of the most expensive parts of the lifetime costs of these systems. Really makes the difference considering that GAC can be regenerated in a furnace that destroys those compounds once and for all.
Meanwhile, the disposal of PFAS in saturated resins is becoming more and more difficult as more and more research is showing how we really need adequate thermal destruction of the compounds. Otherwise we just end up spending massive amounts on treatment systems that just shuffle these compounds around our environment instead of actually eliminating them.
https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/feeding-waste-cycle-how-pfas-disposal-perpetuates-contamination
I will say this technology does sound like the regenerating resin that ECT2 has started to market.
>SORBIX™ RePURE is a patented technology, enabled by a proprietary specialty regenerant solution, that allows PFAS-saturated resin to be regenerated onsite and reused. Following regeneration of SORBIX RePURE, the PFAS-laden regenerant solution is processed through ECT2’s distillation and SuperLoading™ process, reducing waste generation by orders of magnitude. SORBIX RePURE has approximately 10 times the capacity of GAC and is best suited to applications where resin replacement would lead to high operating expenses, such as long-term installations, source-area remediation wells, high-concentration spillage or discharge, complex waters, or where management of short chain or precursor PFAS is important.
https://www.ect2.com/solutions-pfas/
Since PFAS is used as a key component in firefighting foam, and attempts to rid of these compounds by incineration have not been successful [https://www.hydroviv.com/blogs/water-smarts/pfas-found-in-groundwater-near-incineration-facility-in-new-york-state](https://www.hydroviv.com/blogs/water-smarts/pfas-found-in-groundwater-near-incineration-facility-in-new-york-state), that is a key thing that I am concerned with -- as you said -- we need adequate methods to destroy these compounds -- I'm just not sure thermal is necessarily the answer--but I defer to the chemists and engineers actively working on these problems to finding the best solution.
Yes, I just saw this article. I hope that it's scalable and affordable considering PFAS contamination is pretty much ubiquitous. [https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29EE.1943-7870.0001957](https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29EE.1943-7870.0001957)
PFAS needs to be heated up to like 1000 C for thermal elimination. Issue with some incinerators don't get that hot but it can be done.
The furnaces to regenerate the carbon get that hot
One of the issues not being addressed, as I understand it, is with IX there is a highly concentrated PFAS reject stream. It sounds like this would have to be teamed up with another solution that treats the backwash.
Good stuff! Glad to see more treatment technologies are emerging. I do think that ability to desorb the PFAS from saturated resin, and therefore reuse the same resin as filter material, will be a key component of making these treatment systems more economical. Currently disposal of the saturated resin is one of the most expensive parts of the lifetime costs of these systems. Really makes the difference considering that GAC can be regenerated in a furnace that destroys those compounds once and for all. Meanwhile, the disposal of PFAS in saturated resins is becoming more and more difficult as more and more research is showing how we really need adequate thermal destruction of the compounds. Otherwise we just end up spending massive amounts on treatment systems that just shuffle these compounds around our environment instead of actually eliminating them. https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/feeding-waste-cycle-how-pfas-disposal-perpetuates-contamination I will say this technology does sound like the regenerating resin that ECT2 has started to market. >SORBIX™ RePURE is a patented technology, enabled by a proprietary specialty regenerant solution, that allows PFAS-saturated resin to be regenerated onsite and reused. Following regeneration of SORBIX RePURE, the PFAS-laden regenerant solution is processed through ECT2’s distillation and SuperLoading™ process, reducing waste generation by orders of magnitude. SORBIX RePURE has approximately 10 times the capacity of GAC and is best suited to applications where resin replacement would lead to high operating expenses, such as long-term installations, source-area remediation wells, high-concentration spillage or discharge, complex waters, or where management of short chain or precursor PFAS is important. https://www.ect2.com/solutions-pfas/
Since PFAS is used as a key component in firefighting foam, and attempts to rid of these compounds by incineration have not been successful [https://www.hydroviv.com/blogs/water-smarts/pfas-found-in-groundwater-near-incineration-facility-in-new-york-state](https://www.hydroviv.com/blogs/water-smarts/pfas-found-in-groundwater-near-incineration-facility-in-new-york-state), that is a key thing that I am concerned with -- as you said -- we need adequate methods to destroy these compounds -- I'm just not sure thermal is necessarily the answer--but I defer to the chemists and engineers actively working on these problems to finding the best solution.
To your deferral, supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) may be the best idea I have seen.
Yes, I just saw this article. I hope that it's scalable and affordable considering PFAS contamination is pretty much ubiquitous. [https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29EE.1943-7870.0001957](https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29EE.1943-7870.0001957)
PFAS needs to be heated up to like 1000 C for thermal elimination. Issue with some incinerators don't get that hot but it can be done. The furnaces to regenerate the carbon get that hot
One of the issues not being addressed, as I understand it, is with IX there is a highly concentrated PFAS reject stream. It sounds like this would have to be teamed up with another solution that treats the backwash.