On Wednesday, September 9, the 2020-2021 CleanTech Breakfast Series sponsored by Perkins Coie kicked off.
Joseph Quinnan and Dr. Erika Houtz from Arcadis presented on dealing with emerging contaminants, specifically per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS.
Joseph talked about how PFAS are found in a variety of applications from paper coating to metal plating to firefighting foams and more. He talked about how the impacts of PFAS and other emerging contaminants are widespread and that they are being found in more and more places as testing continues to improve.
Dr. Houtz spoke about how the regulatory environment for PFAS and other contaminants is rapidly changing and that different states have different allowable thresholds for the contaminants in the water and soil. Regulations are likely to become stricter as state and federal leaders continue to learn the dangers of PFAS and as testing and PFAS destruction technology becomes more widely available.
Lastly, Dr. Houtz explained some of the technologies and processes used to destroy PFAS such as ozofractionation, which involves creating a bubble of ozone that attracts the PFAS surfactants and concentrates them for destruction. Other methods involve using high temperatures or resins to destroy PFAS.
After a brief Q&A, participants had the chance to stick around for two rounds of virtual networking.
For more information about the CleanTech Breakfast Series sponsored by Perkins Coie, click here.
To watch the full Breakfast panel, click here.
A special thanks to Pacific Northwest National Lab for connecting the CleanTech Alliance to Arcadis. See below for more information on PNNL’s upcoming webinars.
PNNL’s Center for the Remediation of Complex Sites (RemPlex) invites the CTA community to their seminar series on topics in environmental remediation. Seminars are announced in quarterly newsletters and posted on the RemPlex webpage. Please email remplex@pnnl.gov to sign up for the newsletter and visit https://www.pnnl.gov/remplex-seminars to view the upcoming and archived seminars.