The Department of Defense (DoD) awarded Enspired Solutions $1.2 million to deploy the company's PFAS destruction technology on military installations. The first phase of the two-part project will decontaminate fire trucks equipped with Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF). The second phase will combine PFAS pre-concentration technology with Enspired's destruction system to treat groundwater.
The project marks Enspired's second collaboration with the Department of Defense and comes on the heels of the Michigan-based developer receiving an award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to prove out its innovation, which it has named PFASigator. The NIEHS project focuses on destroying concentrated PFAS through resin capture and then regenerating the resin for reuse.
Unlike other systems that address multiple contaminants, Enspired Solutions CEO Dennis Kaye said his system is specifically designed to optimize the destruction of these persistent chemicals and is highly energy efficient.
“Other approaches designed to destroy a variety of chemicals involve heating and pressurizing water or indiscriminately putting energy into solution to destroy many (contaminants),” she says.
How it works is through a chemical reaction catalyzed by ultraviolet light: the light excites the molecule, releasing a hydrated electron into a “cage” that reacts directly with PFAS molecules without the application of heat or pressure.
“It's very high-energy and very reactive,” Kaye said, adding that the chemical reaction is non-oxidizing, so no toxic by-products are produced.
Pilot studies and treatability tests have shown that the concentrate can be treated for between $2 and $7 per gallon, depending on factors such as whether the PFAS came from groundwater, landfill leachate or another waterway and the method used to concentrate it.
The process is monitored in real time by quantifying the production of fluoride released into solution, which Kaye said is a direct measure of PFAS destruction and considered the gold standard for verifying successful resolution.
The PFAS-removed liquid can be discharged to a wastewater treatment plant, eliminating off-site disposal costs.
The units are small and mobile, allowing for temporary deployment, but larger, customized configurations can also be permanently installed at larger water treatment facilities.
The first DoD project completed tested the PFASigator with multiple concentrates, and the technology is currently being tested in two demonstrations: the field demonstration will treat concentrated groundwater with foam fractionation, with the goal of destroying the foam, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the need for offsite disposal.
The Department of Defense will pump groundwater into an on-site foam separator, which will separate and concentrate PFAS into a foamy substance, and a PFASigator installed next to the separator will begin the process of destroying the PFAS.
The fire truck decontamination demonstration was prompted by the Department of Defense's approval of PFAS-free AFFF and the effort to switch fire trucks to this alternative, which requires first cleaning the tanks, which is currently done by repeatedly rinsing the tanks with water, a time-consuming and energy-intensive process that leaves behind water that is laden with PFAS.
In the demonstration, the tank is filled with water once and then connected to a PFASigator to remove PFAS from the tank walls, then circulated continuously, rinsing and destroying the contaminants.
“The water can then be released to a wastewater treatment plant without having to be stored on-site or disposed of in another way, just as is the case with groundwater (that has been concentrated by foam separation),” Kaye says.
As all fire engines inevitably transition to non-PFAS AFFF, Kaye expects to find opportunities at local fire stations, airports and even manufacturing buildings with sprinkler fire suppression systems.
“The ability to replace all AFFF containing PFAS and eliminate off-site disposal would be geographically widespread, and if we could destroy[these contaminants]on-site, it would be widespread in terms of breaking the cycle of PFAS in water resources around the world,” Kaye said.
Hunter Anderson, an environmental scientist at Noblis, provides technical support to the Department of Defense's Environmental Security Technology Certification Program, which evaluates and funds PFAS demonstrations.
“Enspired Solutions has conducted preliminary studies that demonstrate the feasibility of completely degrading PFAS with the PFASigator. The technology differs from other experimental and commercial photocatalysis technologies in that it uses a surfactant additive that forms molecular complexes around PFAS, increasing the efficiency of the decomposition of reactive radicals produced by excitation of the catalyst,” he says.
The project aims to understand real costs and performance and gauge commercial viability, and that evaluation is still ongoing, he says.
Enspired isn't yet selling the equipment, but it's been pilot testing it at several sites and Kaye said it's ready to take commercial orders.
The plan is to sell the system, help clients optimize it for their site, and provide training to run the system.
For now, most industries considering addressing PFAS have adopted the conservative, proven process of investing in granular activated resins and disposing of them offsite.
Kaye speculates that it will take early adopters to confidently take the next step: disruption, whether motivated by doing their part to protect the world's water resources or because regulations are pushing them in that direction.
Interestingly, Enspired is woman-owned and woman-run.
Kay and co-founder Meng Wang spent years working in the environmental remediation consulting industry and saw first-hand the lack of women in leadership roles.
“We felt it was important that we founded the company as two women and have worked hard to maintain ownership. Being federally recognized as a woman-owned small business gives us access to federal contracts and makes us more attractive to large consulting firms to partner with,” she says.
But in Kay's eyes, there are other, more abundant benefits.
“If we don't reflect all types of diversity in our leadership, we're wearing blinders. As an innovation-focused startup, we want all kinds of ideas that broaden our horizons, and the best way to do that is to embrace diversity of people and diversity of thought.”
