A system designed to remove persistent per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) chemicals from water is demonstrating its destructive prowess at a wastewater treatment facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This full-scale, commercial deployment of the PFAS Annihilator is the first permitted solution for destroying these “forever chemicals” in the U.S.

The supercritical water oxidation-based process is being applied to the treatment of 160,000 gal/day of landfill leachate at the facility. Once the contaminated fluids are processed by the PFAS Annihilator, the only byproducts remaining are clean effluent water, carbon dioxide and inert salts. The treatment plant operator can confidently discharge the clean effluent water to publicly owned water treatment works, as monitoring by state and local regulatory agencies has confirmed that the process is protective of human health and the environment. Engineering calculations have also concluded that discharges to the atmosphere are negligible.

The PFAS Annihilator can also process aqueous PFAS waste from multiple sites and sources and for other applications that include industrial wastewater, soil remediation and aqueous film forming foam used in firefighting foams. By completely destroying PFAS, the treatment system can supplant traditional methods of disposal that include sending PFAS-laden waste to landfills or deep well injection sites, and thermal treatment using incineration, which may not completely destroy these chemicals.