Technology developed by rapidly growing Australian PFAS pollution remediation specialist EPOC Enviro will be deployed from this week to clean up one of the world’s largest PFAS contaminated sites – a former 3M plant in Minnesota.
An EPOC Enviro Surface Active Foam Fractionation (SAFF) water treatment plant arrived at the site in Minnesota this week and will be a key part of remediation efforts being undertaken by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).
The MPCA is the lead organisation administering the funds from the huge settlement 3M reached with the state government over long-term PFAS pollution at its sites.
The plant is just the third SAFF unit to arrive in the USA, and is one of 10 units currently in existence so far globally.
It uses a sustainably engineered approach to PFAS remediation, where a combination of aeration and vacuum is used to "foam out" more than 99% of target PFAS molecules, enabling treated water to be safely returned to the environment.
The technology underwent a pilot testing program at the Australian Department of Defence’s Oakey airbase remediation site in Queensland and since 2019 has successfully treated 60 million litres of contaminated water and achieved results of <0.01µg/l or better for PFAS removal.
EPOC Enviro’s SAFF units are also remediating sites through Sweden, Europe and at other US sites, but company president Peter Murphy says the Minnesota site will be an important showcase for the technology in the US.
"Minnesota is a state which is on the leading edge of PFAS remediation. We could not be prouder to have our SAFF technology selected as a lead technology in this critically important work," Murphy said.
"As an environmental engineering company, we are committed to helping to positively solve this vast contamination problem which is why we are investing heavily in the construction of a SAFF manufacturing facility at Emu Plains that can build up to 150 SAFF units a year," he said.
Murphy said the technology leveraged the natural physiochemistry of PFAS molecules to bond to the surface of air bubbles and the fractionation process removes them in a closed loop system that produces no waste other than high density PFAS concentrate.
"We now have a brilliant opportunity to showcase the value of years of sustainable engineering development in resolving these complex forever chemical remedial issues. This is a positive sign of change as the remediation community moves away from unsustainable adsorbent technologies," Murphy said.
An EPOC enviro spokesperson told Footprint that the EMU Plains facility was currently running two shifts a day and would shortly move to three shifts to keep up with demand.
The company would also soon start to manufacture SAFF units at a new factory in the US.
