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PFAS Fate and Remediation: Treatment Methods and Residual Waste Streams
Citation:
Potter, P. PFAS Fate and Remediation: Treatment Methods and Residual Waste Streams. Association of Clean Water Administrators 2023 Mid-Year Meeting, Washington, DC, March 15 - 16, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
PFAS contamination is widespread in our environment and may adversely impact human health. Thermal treatment is commonly used for both sewage sludge and GAC, which both typically contain PFAS. There is growing attention on non-targeted analysis of PFAS to properly assess the fate of these compounds during thermal treatment. A pilot-scale fluidized bed reactor was used to mimic both full-scale sewage sludge incineration and GAC reactivation. Gas-phase emissions were collected, along with solid and liquid residuals, and analyzed for products of incomplete combustion (PICs). These findings should influence future studies on thermal treatment of PFAS by assessing current thermal treatment conditions on the fate of these compounds. These methodologies may be useful to a variety of government and academic researchers investigating PFAS remediation.
Description:
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of man-made chemicals that have been in use since the 1940s in a wide array of consumer products. PFAS are persistent in the environment and bioaccumulate. Thermal treatment methods are currently applied to a variety of materials, including sewage sludge and granular activated carbon (GAC). There is a critical need to assess the efficacy of existing and emerging thermal treatment methods to completely destroy or mineralize PFAS. Currently, most assessments of thermal treatment methods use targeted PFAS quantification of a limited number of compounds. This targeted approach can overlook products of incomplete combustion (PICs). Non-targeted analysis (NTA) of PFAS is required to properly assess the efficacy of these thermal treatment methods and to determine the fate of these compounds in thermal treatment systems. This work is ongoing and involves multiple bench-, pilot-, and full-scale thermal systems treating a variety of materials.