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technology called foam fractionation, Aclarity will be on site trying to destroy those compounds.
“You probably won’t see us bolted onto the end of a water treatment plant,” Schneider said. “In New York City, their small system treats 290 mil- lion gallons a day. Their large system, over a billion gallons. We just can’t treat that much. But this particular plant treats about 20 million gallons of water a day, and when you concentrate it all the way through foam fractionation, you might be down to 20,000 gallons, and at that level, that’s something we can treat. So it’s a combination of con- centration technologies followed by destructive technologies.”
Meanwhile, in Northern Italy, Aclar- ity is working with a textile plant, treat- ing PFAS at the factory rather than letting it get out to the enviroment and having to worry about treating it there, Schneider explained.
“One other area we’re looking at is Department of Defense bases and fire- fighting academies. A lot of these com- pounds are found in firefighting foam. They’ll spray it down, and it keeps oxy- gen away and stands up to high heat,
“The first company that can commercialize a product that can destroy these compounds is going to be a big winner. And we think we are in the lead there.”
but then you have this lagoon of water that’s highly contaminated. So we’re discussing building a mobile treatment system where we can come in, treat the lagoon for whatever amount of time is needed, then move on to the next site.”
Schneider said Aclarity was looking for someone like him who knows the water industry — he’s been working in it for 35 years — and understands these technologies. And he was intrigued by the potential of Bliss Mullen’s startup.
“There are other emerging destruc- tive technologies out there, but, put- ting on my scientific hat, my engineer’s hat, I have doubts about some of them, how well they’ll scale up or how much energy they’ll use or the materials that are required. I follow trends of new technologies that come out, and I think electrochemical is the next one that’s really going to make a change and emerge from the lab into something that becomes commercially viable.
“That’s one of the reasons why I joined Aclarity. None of our existing technologies really deal with PFAS well,” he went on. “We can get it out
of the water, but we just transfer it to something else, whether it’s a more concentrated water stream or granular
activated carbon or ion exchange, but then, what do we do with it? It’s still there. Electrochemistry has promise; we’re showing that we can actually destroy these compounds and render them harmless.”
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That result, on a broad scale, would be life-changing for many, Schneider said. And it starts with an increasingly fine ability to detect pollution in water.
“I use this line a lot: one of the best things I learned in high school was
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Continued on page 42
Intrigued by the company’s promise, Orren Schneider (left) brought decades of experience in the water industry to Aclarity.
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