“Scientists from a privately owned Australian company, OPEC Systems, claim to have developed a new technology known as Surface Active Foam Fractionation to remove PFAS compounds from contaminated water.
Independent NATA testing demonstrates that the technology simply and effectively removes over 99.95 per cent of priority PFAS compounds from source water, meeting recreational use standards within minutes.
Subsequent polishing with other well established technologies enables remediation to drinking water guidelines, the company says.
‘SAFF has the potential to effectively treat thousands of sites containing PFAS contaminated waters both in Australia and worldwide, and brings a much needed solution for those organizations currently storing PFAS contaminated waters on site with no effective disposal route,’ OPEC environmental division manager, Steve Phillips, said…
SAFF technology treats PFAS contaminated water on site within specialised fractionation columns. Air is introduced into the column of PFAS contaminated water through a diffuser, and the resulting bubble column rises to produce a contaminant rich foam on the water surface, which is extracted using a uniquely designed vacuum extraction system.
After the first run through, treated water is reprocessed in a secondary SAFF vessel, before being safely returned to the environment. The extracted PFAS concentrate receives secondary polishing treatments to create a hyper-concentrate which is potentially thousands of times more potent than the original contaminate, before being taken off-site for destruction at a certified waste destruction facility.”
Read the full article by Chris McLennan.