Day: April 28, 2022

Battelle demonstrates unit that destroys PFAS in wastewater

Battelle Sr. Research Technician, Mark Reyes, installs PFAS Annihilator™ on Feb 21, 2022. Photo credit: Battelle

Battelle launched a weeklong pilot demonstration in early March of its first-to-market total solution for PFAS removal and destruction at a wastewater treatment facility operated by Heritage-Crystal Clean in western Michigan. The Battelle PFAS Annihilator™ Mobile Unit, a closed-loop, on-site destruction solution powered by supercritical water oxidation (SCWO), was used to safely and completely destroy per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) chemicals in contaminated water.

Originally designed as an armor coating in the 1940s, PFAS—widely known as “forever chemicals”—have been adapted for use in a wide array of consumer and industrial products such as non-stick cookware, stain-resistant textiles, paint, metal plating, food packaging, and firefighting foams. These products that contain PFAS chemicals seep into the environment including our soil, water, and food supply.

“The same properties that make PFAS so useful also make them very difficult to remove from the environment and our bodies, as they resist heat, oil, stains, grease and water and are temperature resistant and reduce friction,” said Amy Dindal, Battelle PFAS Program Manager. “There are more than 5,000 different versions of PFAS, making every contamination different. This new technology will do incredible things for addressing PFAS water contamination.”

In 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified more than 120,000 U.S. locations where people may be exposed to PFAS.

“PFAS disposal is a challenge for many of our customers,” said Brian Recatto, President and CEO of Heritage-Crystal Clean. “When I first read about Battelle’s PFAS Annihilator, I immediately connected with Battelle to discuss a pilot deployment at one of our facilities. PFAS contamination is an incredibly complex, multi-generational problem that needs to be addressed for the health and safety of our communities.”

As federal and state agencies and the scientific community continue to grapple with critical questions about PFAS, Battelle took the lead in developing credible approaches to identifying PFAS chemicals and predicting where they will go and where they came from and how to destroy them completely. Other technologies for treating PFAS-contaminated water only provide temporary PFAS decontamination, require incineration or landfilling for final deposition of PFAS and generate secondary waste. Battelle’s PFAS Annihilator™ Mobile Unit is an on-site destruction solution that has demonstrated destruction at the lowest levels of detection, which mitigates concerns with meeting future regulatory limits that are currently unknown.

To break down these complex chemicals, the PFAS Annihilator™ pumps draw the contaminated wastewater into the system where it is mixed with hydrogen peroxide, isopropanol as a co-fuel and sodium hydroxide as a neutralizing agent. After passing through a heat exchanger, a furnace removes the salts. Then the water goes into the reactor at a designed temperature and pressure to break the carbon-fluorine bond. The resulting output is carbon dioxide and hydrofluoric acid which is neutralized with sodium hydroxide that turns it into inert salts. This solution eliminates any harmful byproducts. In trials of more than 30 PFAS-contaminated sample types, it consistently demonstrates more than 99.99% destruction of total PFAS.

Diagram of PFAS Annihilator™ Image credit: Battelle

“In this pilot we saw the Battelle PFAS Annihilator™ demonstrate the ability to reduce total PFAS in landfill leachate to single digit concentrations with no adverse byproducts in the treated water,” said Dindal. “We’ve successfully demonstrated this technology can be brought to a facility that processes waste materials, set-up in a few hours, and destroy PFAS chemicals in the presence of other co-contaminants. We are invigorated in our intent to bring this game-changing technology to scale and expand it to meet the growing need around the country.”

In December 2021, Dindal appeared before the U.S. Congress Subcommittee on Environment and the Subcommittee on Research and Technology to give testimony on Battelle’s extensive research and development of solutions for addressing PFAS problems in the U.S.

The next iteration of the PFAS Annihilator™ Mobile Unit—currently under construction—will have an increased capacity for wastewater intake and treatment, as well as automate the process so units can operate without manual intervention, bringing it to scale to clean industrial size containers of wastewater.

Visit Battelle’s website to learn more about the Battelle PFAS Annihilator™ Mobile Unit and view and download additional media assets from the demo, including b-roll, photos, a fact sheet and more.

About Battelle

Every day, the people of Battelle apply science and technology to solving what matters most. At major technology centers and national laboratories around the world, Battelle conducts research and development, designs and manufactures products, and delivers critical services for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio since its founding in 1929, Battelle serves the national security, health and life sciences, and energy and environmental industries. For more information, visit www.battelle.org.

About Heritage-Crystal Clean, Inc.

Heritage-Crystal Clean, Inc. provides parts cleaning, used oil re-refining, and hazardous and non-hazardous waste services primarily to small and mid-sized manufacturers and other industrial businesses as well as customers in the vehicle maintenance sector. Our service programs include parts cleaning, containerized waste management, used oil collection and re-refining, wastewater vacuum, waste antifreeze collection, recycling and product sales, and field services. Heritage-Crystal Clean, Inc. is headquartered in Elgin, Illinois, and operates through 91 branches serving approximately 95,000 customer locations.

Source: Battelle

Bottled water giant BlueTriton admits claims of recycling and sustainability are “puffery”

Read the full story at The Intercept.

In ongoing litigation over the greenwashing of plastic recycling, the bottled water company BlueTriton made a revealing argument: its claims of being environmentally friendly aren’t violations of the law, because they are “aspirational.”

BlueTriton — which owns Poland Spring, Pure Life, Splash, Ozarka, and Arrowhead, among many other brands — is estimated to contribute hundreds of millions of pounds of plastic to U.S. landfills each year. BlueTriton used to be known as Nestlé Waters North America, which was bought by the private equity firm One Rock Capital Partners in March 2021. The company, which has a history of draining aquifers to get the water that it encases in polluting plastic, owns about a third of bottled water brands in the U.S. Yet with sleek, green — and blue — PR materials, BlueTriton markets itself as a solution to the problems of plastic waste and water.

How high-profile scientists felt tricked by group denying climate change

Read the full story from the BBC.

A dozen scientists, politicians, and campaigners say they have been tricked into participating in online events promoting climate-change denial.

The events were organised by the Creative Society, an international activist group that denies global warming is being caused by human activity.

Google Cloud survey: Execs prioritizing ESG efforts, but struggle to measure progress

Read the full story at ESG Today.

Sustainability has climbed up the priority list of business executives, according to a survey released today by Google Cloud, yet many feel that their companies overstate their sustainability efforts, and most lack the tools to measure their progress.

For the study, conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Google Cloud, nearly 1,500 executives at the C-Suite or VP levels were surveyed across multiple global markets and industries.

IPCC report paints damning portrait of architecture: Our buildings are ‘wrongly designed’

Read the full story in Fast Company.

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is here, and it outlines how buildings are one of the worst climate offenders—but there are solutions hiding in plain sight.

‘No time to waste’: PepsiCo ramps up water goal with revolutionary tech that reuses steam from potato chip production

Read the full story at Bakery & Snacks.

PepsiCo has developed groundbreaking tech for condensing and treating the steam evaporated from its fryers to recover more than 50% of the water used in potato chip manufacturing lines, an approach that could save 60 million litres of water a year.

License to Greenwash: How Certification Schemes and Voluntary Initiatives Are Fueling Fossil Fashion

Download the document.

The fashion sector is awash with certification schemes, sustainability labels and multi-stakeholder initiatives all seeking to steer the industry onto a greener course. As public and political awareness of the high environmental and social toll of the fashion industry has climbed the agenda, and scrutiny on brands has intensified, so has the visibility of certification schemes and voluntary initiatives pitched as holding the solutions.

The existence of such schemes serves a dual purpose for the brands. As the fashion industry is one of the least regulated sectors in the world, these schemes partially exist as a genuine attempt to move towards sustainability in the absence of environmental legislation. But they also enable the proliferation of ‘greenwashing’ on a remarkable scale. Whether it is the use of certification labels on individual products – assuring customers that they can shop guilt free by putting their money where their values lie – or brands proudly communicating their membership of various fashion-related voluntary initiatives, the existence of these schemes and the inherent lack of accountability within them are a key part of the greenwashing machinery of the modern fashion industry. Moreover, the level of influence exercised by fashion brands in these initiatives and the lack of any independent oversight, inevitably means that they end up promoting industry interests.

It’s time for resale to grow up

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

The secondhand goods market is expected to grow to $77 billion in 2025 from $36 billion in 2021.

Using tiny satellites to monitor harmful gases from space (op-ed)

Read the full story at Space.com.

The NACHOS system is paving a trail for tiny pollution-monitoring spacecraft.

Oat waste turned into energy helps Oatly facilities transition to 100% renewable electricity

Read the full story at Environment + Energy Leader.

In part from converting oat waste into clean energy, two Oatly production facilities in the United States transitioned to using 100% renewable electricity in 2021.

The oat drink company sourced renewable energy certificates (REC) from wind and solar for its facilities in Millville, New Jersey, and Ogden, Utah, as well as from oat fiber residue.