Last year, BioLargo
Engineering, Science & Technologies (BLEST) was awarded an EPA SBIR grant
to fund the company’s efforts to create an effective, affordable solution to
the global per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) contamination crisis. The
project was in collaboration with leading environmental scientists at the
University of Tennessee.
These efforts were successful – in 2019 BLEST developed a
working prototype of a device called the Aqueous Electrostatic Concentrator
(AEC) that was proven effective at eliminating PFAS from water in continuous
flow. In fact, the AEC was shown to eliminate more than 99% of PFAS molecules
from flowing water at an approximate energy consumption cost of less than 30
cents per 1,000 gallons, which is estimated to be highly competitive compared
to alternative technologies.
We are now proud to announce that the EPA has published a
report detailing the successes of this project on their website. You can read
the report here:
The report concludes, “The study demonstrated the ability
of the AEC to remove over 99 percent of total PFOA and PFOS from the feed
stream. During testing the AEC was
operated at conditions that would provide a theoretical concentration factor up
to 35 times, based on the ratio of Feed Chamber rate to AEM Chamber rate when
operating in flow-through mode. With
additional testing, higher concentration factors are expected to be achieved.”
Stay tuned for more updates as BLEST works to scale up and
commercialize the AEC technology to start treating PFAS contamination problems
that are currently affecting countless Americans.
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