Replies to post #29335 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

Cleaning up PFAS (from today’s Boston Globe):

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/21/business/forever-chemicals-gradiant-woburn/

Amid a growing awareness that drinking water is contaminated with harmful “forever chemicals,” one local startup has a new solution. Woburn-based Gradiant, an MIT spinout focused on water purification technologies, says its new process not only filters out perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, known as PFAS, but destroys the dangerous substances as well.

Dubbed “forever gone,” the 11-year-old company’s tech fits inside a shipping container that can be placed at municipal water utility facilities. The two-step process first injects billions of tiny bubbles into the water to separate out the PFAS. Then electrodes zap the harmful substances, breaking down the chemicals into inert substances.

… Currently, most municipalities use a filtration system to remove PFAS from water. The contaminants then need to be shipped to a hazardous waste landfill or incineration facility. Gradiant said its system removes the chemicals and destroys them all on-site, leading to cost savings of about 30 percent compared to filtering and shipping PFAS. [Gradiant's president] Alagappan said the technology is already in use by the US Air Force and several of the company’s industrial customers in the semiconductor sector.