PFAS 101: Why PFAS Contamination Matters to our Industry
PFAS contamination is all over the news at the moment. To understand why this issue is pertinent, SIGMA’s Technical Sales Engineer, Dennis Wilson, sat down with two PFAS experts, Mike Donovan and Barry Shadrix from the chemical engineering company, CETCO, a Minerals Technologies subsidiary. They provided some background on PFAS, best practices in PFAS Remediation, and PFAS’s likely impact on the Plant Work sector.
What are PFAS?
CETCO’s Mike Donovan, Global R&D Director, explains in layman’s terms: “PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. These man-made chemicals have been around since the 1950’s and 60’s. As waterproofing and anti-stick agents they are extremely useful and are therefore ubiquitous; they are used in clothing, cookware and even in firefighting foam.
The Problem with PFAS
“In a nutshell, the carbon-fluorine bond doesn’t break down, hence PFAS’s nickname of ‘forever chemicals’. We are finding that PFAS can make their way into the environment and this can potentially lead to serious problems in humans, including cancer. The main source of contamination is environmental, potentially through dust or water.”
Why is this a Concern for Municipalities and Treatment Plant Operators?
“The evidence is in; PFAS are harmful and the EPA is therefore now involved in PFAS regulation. A ruling was recently passed in April of this year that is impacting drinking water providers, who will need to protect both their water sources and protect the end consumer by measuring and reducing exposure to PFAS contaminants.”
What’s the Science behind PFAS Remediation?
Barry Shadrix, CETCO’s Commercial Director jumps in here: “PFAS Remediation is necessary because we know from testing source water that these chemicals are migrating into the ground as a result of industrial processing activity and from household and commercial waste. There are several different ways to attack the problem, i.e. Carbon and ion exchange filtration, surface-modified clay products, and membranes. CETCO favors a patented surface-modified clay product (FLUORO-SORB® Adsorbent) that can be coupled with a needle-punched geotextile (REACTIVE CORE MAT®) for broad deployment versatility. We have years of experience in the industrial manufacturing and processing sector, but with increasing concern about how PFAS are affecting the watershed, we realized that the water industry could benefit from our experience.
CETCO’s Approach
There are several approaches. The first is to cut off the head of the snake before it can contaminate the watershed. This involves ring-fencing industrial facilities using a filtration barrier trench consisting of a proprietary surface-modified clay that can be used in bulk or impregnated into a needle-punched geotextile mat that filters contaminants and prevents them from leaching into the water table. Likewise, we can go directly to the water source, ie a lake or river, and line that water source with a similar impregnated mat to protect against contamination from stormwater run-off. Alongside these protective practices, we can add a PFAS filtering product either as a first step in the filtration process or as a final step before the water reaches the consumer.
Our clay products are NSF-61 certified for drinking water contact and work on the principle of adsorption and ion-exchange; they extract the PFAS and pollutants out of the water.
While CETCO originated in the industrial sector and is best known for environmental remediation, the company has run over 100 pilots with utilities to treat PFAS. Notable successes include a facility operated by the Orange County Water District. To find out more about CETCO’s services, contact cetco@mineralstech.com.