[0:01]Hi everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining us today. I am Itzik Ozenberg, CTO at Atlantium Technologies and I will be your moderators for today's session. We are excited to have you here. Over 20 years, we have been pioneers in advanced water treatment with our proprietary HOD UV technology. Taking critical water quality challenges, including emerging contaminants. Today, we'll showcase how Inspired Solution integrated Atlantium HOD UV technology to provide onsite PFAS destruction.
[0:48]As many of you know, only a small portion of earth's water is safe for consumption. Technology is the only way for ensuring global access to safe water.
[1:08]Our solutions focus on eliminating pollutants, rather than capturing or sorbing them, which only transferred the problem for one place to the other. We put all our efforts in finding ways to solve the problem by using HOD UV light.
[1:33]UV light is a viable tool for for photo decomposition of pollutants, while generating germicidal and photochemistry power by direct photolysis or in a combination with dedicated additives.
[1:53]Atlantium is currently active in providing solutions for such needs such as NDMA, 1,4-Dioxane, TCE and others.
[2:07]Now, let's talk about PFAS, also known as forever chemicals. These chemicals are resistant to breakdown and persist in the environment. Atlantium has teamed up with Inspired Solutions to provide highly sophisticated solution to eliminate PFAS. Effective PFAS destruction with UV requires consideration of the specific water characteristics, the target power, and the light spectrum. Optimizing for these aspects ensure the system delivers maximum effectiveness in addressing PFOs contamination.
[3:04]Now, I would like to introduce Inspire Solution. This women lead company is at the forefront of PFAS destruction innovation. Please welcome CEO and co-founder of Inspired Denise Key and chief operations officer Sarah Meyer. Denise, the floor is yours. Hi, I'm Denise. Uh thank you Itzak and thanks to Atlantium for arranging and hosting this webinar. Thanks also to each of you for spending some of your time with us today. We hope to provide you with some useful information for solving your P fast challenges, and we would also like to learn a little from you too. So please scan the QR code um and indicate the water matrix you most frequently work with. Uh you will need to scroll to the bottom of the selections to submit your answer and we'll show the survey outcome on screen.
[4:13]It looks like uh industrial waste water is leading with uh drinking water not far behind. Ground water contaminant is um pretty significant too. Uh, thank you. That's a great indication and very helpful to us. Um so Sarah, would you help us continue with the presentation? Yeah, thanks Denise. Hi everyone. It's great to be with you today on this webinar. I'm going to start by building on what Itzack started with today. PFAS, they're referred to as forever chemicals because they don't naturally break down in the environment.
[4:58]And the rising amount in our global water resources has resulted in 95% of us having detectable levels Pfas in our blood. There are many routes for PFAS to get into the environment and human exposure comes through water, food, and convenient household products. Unfortunately, PFAS exposure is now linked to negative reproductive outcomes and multiple types of cancer. With the increasing regulation and growing awareness of risks posed by PFAS, companies contributing to environmental releases are facing substantial costs. Fines and litigation settlements related to P fast pollution are frequently in the news these days with costs ranging from millions to actually billions of dollars. Current methods to manage P fast in water effectively really just push it around or move it around, capturing it on filter media and disposing of it in ways that can risk re-releasing a portion back into the environment. Inspired Solutions innovation is equipment and chemistry that allow PFAS in water to be broken down into non-toxic discharge on site. At the heart of the system is Atlantium's HOD UV technology, catalyzing a reductive deflorination reaction. So uh this is how it works. In the first panel, the blue dots represent PFAS. When P fast contaminated water enters the system, liquid reagents are mixed in and form a reactive cage, isolating the P fast molecules. Atlantium HOD UV triggers a reductive deflorination reaction. The system is not pressurized and it is not heated. This results in harmless byproducts, including fluoride, water and simple non-toxic compounds. And by the way, we can monitor the destruction reaction in progress in real time by measuring the production of these fluoride ions. And we're recognized. Inspired chemistry has won an award from US EPA and Department of Defense by meeting their criteria for P fast destruction and energy efficiency. We call our total solution, the Pfasigator. The Pfasigator is modular automated equipment and the patented chemical reactions that occur within the equipment. This is me and my co-founder, Meng Wang with our first commercial scale Pfasigator. The Pfasigator is a batch reactor. Concentrated P fas solution enters and reagents are mixed. The batch is circulated through the HOD UV light system while fluoride is monitored as a real-time indicator of P fas destruction. When the targeted level of destruction is obtained, the treated solution is discharged back to the waste treatment system. Pfasigator has comprehensive process monitoring and control to ensure reliable operation. The real-time fluoride measurement confirms the P fast mineralization. The UV lamp sensor ensures efficient HOD UV functionality, and there is automatic reagent dosing, along with remote monitoring and control from mobile phones. All of these features support your peace of mind, knowing that the equipment is functioning around the clock with direct evidence of P fast destruction.
[9:07]The Pfasigator is highly energy efficient and scales well when included in a recirculating process flow with other technologies that separate and concentrate the P fas. Using an example of P fas contaminated groundwater, the energy efficient recirculating process flow works like this. PFAS contaminated groundwater enters the separation and concentration unit where PFAS is removed. The discharge from this stage is the system effluent that meets your P fas discharge goals. The PFAS that was removed is now concentrated into a smaller volume of liquid, and that concentrate goes to the Pfasigator for one to two orders of magnitude P fas destruction.
[10:00]At high concentrations, P fas destruction is highly efficient. When Pfasigator has met your site specific P fas destruction targets, the liquid is discharged and returned to the separation and concentration unit where any remaining P fas is re-concentrated along with the groundwater flow. And I'll further add some data here from our 2023 pilot test at an industrial facility in Michigan where we treated Pfas contaminated groundwater continuously for one month. PFOS was the target compound, and it was at a concentration of 1600 P PT in ground water. 5800 gallons per day were pumped into a foam fractionation unit for separation and concentration. The system discharge met the site specific criteria of 28 PPT PFOS. Then 12 gallons per day of concentrate were generated with 380,000 PPT PFOS, and that went to the Pfasigator for destruction of up to 99.7%. The remaining P fas were recycled back to foam fractionation for reprocessing with incoming groundwater. And here's a photo of this field pilot in action. On the left are the stack tanks of contaminated groundwater. This water flowed to the foam fractionation device shown in the back of the room. You can see the foam stacking up in the tower there. When the concentrated foam collapsed back into a liquid, it was then routed to the Pfasigator for destruction, that's on the right hand side of the photo. Following destruction, the Pfasigator effluent was then looped back to the holding tanks of contaminated groundwater for reconcentration and the loop continued. And here's some of the data from that pilot test. Several treatment batches are shown on this slide. Each set of bars represents PFOs concentration in Pfasigator influent, the blue bars, and effluent, the orange bars. The right hand access shows the percent PFOs destruction achieved. For these batches that rain from 87% to over 99% destruction.
[12:28]One of the advantages of our Pfasigator and photo activated reductive deflorination is that the Pfas destruction occurs at atmospheric temperatures and pressure. So we can have this ion selective electrode on the equipment, monitoring the production of fluoride in real time. So we're basically monitoring the destruction of P fas by the release of fluoride ions into solution. Taking this one step further, you're looking at an example of the fluorine mass balance we're able to achieve using our technology. The left hand column is all of the fluorine bound to different forms of P fas before the reaction began. The blue line is the fluoride measured in solution as it was liberated from the P fas. And the right hand bar shows the small amount of P fas remaining after treatment and how well that balances with the fluoride released during destruction. By accounted for the fluorine before and after treatment, we are assured that no P fas was lost during treatment to venting or sticking to machine parts or other potential loss mechanisms.
[13:44]So the project Sarah just described was a field pilot with a low flow rate that required only intermittent use of the Pfasigator. In contrast, drinking water, water reclamation, municipal waste water facilities can have flow rates in the millions of gallons per day. Often these sites use filtration media to remove P fast from water with recent commercial availability of regenerable media. PFAS in the liquid regenerant can be destroyed in the Pfasigator with the Pfasigator effluent looping back to the filtration media. So to answer the question we often hear, what flow rate can the Pfasigator treat? The answer is unique for each site based on a number of variables. However, a general guide is that a single Pfasigator module can treat 150 to 200 gallons of site concentrate per day. And then depending on the technology used for P fast separation and concentration, this can equate to 150,000 to 5 million gallons per day for one modular Pfasigator.
[15:08]Inspired has also developed a novel approach for fire truck decontamination. The Pfasigator is connected in a recirculation loop with the AFF tank and piping. The fire system is continually flushed with warm water containing surfactant while PFAS is simultaneously destroyed. When fluoride is no longer being produced, the solution that has been circulating can be passed through a filter media as a final polish and released to a local water treatment facility. This process has been demonstrated to remove and destroy more than 15 times the P fas removed by a plain water rinse. The advantages to this approach include minimum fire truck downtime, simultaneous cleaning and destruction, no waste left on site, and Pfas removal is maximized while rebound is minimized. All of this is done with a process that meets or exceeds existing guidelines.
[16:20]Pfasigator's reductive deflorination approach itself has many advantages, such as those presented on this slide. We've talked about how it achieves low energy use. And one of the ways we do that is by using what we call a tunable reaction. That is when the UV lamp is turned off, the destruction reaction stops and you save energy that might be used to destroy everything in the site water. Here, you're only targeting what needs to be destroyed based on your requirements.
[16:53]The technology produces no toxic byproducts. It's safe to operate. It operates at atmospheric temperature and pressure and you can operate it yourself. Has a modular design with a small footprint. So you can add more units with higher volumes of for treatment. It is built of familiar water treatment equipment that has been in the industry and tested for years. It is not a black box that requires um somebody from inspired to operate. And it's automated with remote data monitoring. Again, this offers that peace of mind, even while you're not standing right next to the machine watching it run. If the Pfasigator and photo activated reductive deflorination sound like they might be a fit for you, determining the following characteristics of your site will prepare you for your next conversation with Inspired Solutions. Water matrix. What is the water matrix you're working with? Is it landfill, leacha, municipal waste water, drinking water or something else? The flow rate. How much P fast contaminated water are you managing daily? The concentration. What is your approximate concentration of P fast in the water matrix? And discharge criteria. What are the site specific regulatory criteria that you are striving to meet? With this information, we can get started on understanding how our technology can apply to your water. So once you provide the basic information Sarah just described, Inspired can support you in developing and implementing a site specific strategy. Screening tests demonstrate that this chemistry works in your water matrix. Treatability studies determine the scale of equipment you'll need to meet your site goals. And field pilot and full scale implementation solve your P fas challenges on site.
[19:00]When you're ready to develop and implement a site specific strategy, Inspired is ready to do that with you. Thank you everyone again for spending a bit of time listening today and now we have some time left to address your questions. Sarah, what kinds of questions are you seeing? Yeah, Denise. I'm going to uh read a few here and please feel free to continue uh entering your questions into the chat. Um, let's see. This is anonymous question. Would I buy or lease your equipment and do you provide an operator? Inspired can use either model. Whatever is the best um business decision for you, you can purchase a Pfasigator module or you can lease it. And we will assist with installation and train an operator, uh so that you can operate it yourself. If it's a short-term lease and you would prefer that we would operate, then that's um uh viable option also.
[20:10]And what makes your technology energy efficient? One of the the big gains we have in energy efficiency are that because we're not heating and pressurizing water, we're not like fighting the thermodynamics of water. We don't have to put all of that energy in. The energy is translated quite directly from the ultraviolet light to excite an electron donor, which provides an electron, which reacts to break the carbon fluorine bonds. So it's um energy input directly towards the outcome that we're trying to achieve, gives us efficiency. In addition, uh in the beginning, I talked about how we formed that uh reactive cage or isolate the P fas molecules from water. So even when your solution is concentrated, we further concentrate it into these molecular reactive cages and by having the density of the chemicals that need to react for the breakdown, we gain further energy efficiency there.
[24:14]Great. Um, here's a quick one. Do you treat solids? No, we do not treat solids. Um, there can be some some suspension in the in the solution that goes into the batch reactor. Uh, but we do not yet treat solids.
[24:38]And this is a common question. What information do you need to estimate the cost for P fas destruction at one of my sites? That goes back to the questions Sarah presented. It it really is as simple as these four pieces of information here. So water matrix, flow rate, P fas concentration, you know, estimated with an order of magnitude and what your site specific discharge is. With that, we can do a very rough estimate of the total cost. Um, after completion of a treatability test, we can do a very refined estimate. That treatability tests gives us the kinetics of how quick the breakdown occurs, what ultraviolet light dose is necessary to break down the P fas in your water matrix to meet the criteria you're trying to meet.
[25:40]Thanks Denise. Uh there's a question here. will this presentation be available for review after the webinar? Yes, I believe this is being recorded and um we'll leave the distribution of that to Atlantium, but yes, this will be available for viewing after. Correct. We will send the recording to all participants that were registered. Perfect. Thanks, Itzik.
[26:10]Um, here's one. This is from Stefan. Are there any constraints regarding the destruction when it comes to the length of P fas molecule? No, there are not. However, the every P fas molecule that has a standard that we have tested, we have been able to destroy.
[26:33]And there are multiple scientific publication showing that this um chemistry can take long P fas molecules all the way down to complete mineralization. That does require a high UV dose, but there is no limit that we've found yet. Um it will start on long chains and get them sequentially shorter until they're gone or it'll start on a short chain and break that down sequentially until it is fully mineralized. These are We've got some good questions. Yeah. Production of the of the fluoride helps um greatly with being able to demonstrate um that level of destruction.
[40:39]Thanks Denise. Could you put your um slides back to the QA slide and I'll just point out that we have the QR code there to contact us further.
[43:50]We've I believe we've come up to the end of our scheduled time here. One last thing I I'll say is that there was a question about where do we manufacture our units? They're manufactured right at our lab and offices in Lansing, Michigan. We're in the US.
