Aquagga on a
Mission
In downtown Tacoma Washington, in a brightly lit office
space located a few city blocks from the Foss Waterway, I met with the award-winning engineering
team of a Cleantech Startup called Aquagga. They were busy at work to destroy and remove PFAS from the world’s freshwater supplies in order
“to improve health equity and environmental justice.”
PFAS (Per and polyfluroalkyl substances) colloquially known as “forever chemicals” are
a group of man-made substances polluting our soil, air, and water. According to the EPA, exposure to PFAS has been linked to health problems such as…
- Decreased Fertility
- Developmental delay in children
- Increased risk of cancer.
- Reduced immune response.
- Interference with Hormone Response
- Increased Cholesterol levels and/or risk of
Obesity
Despite their carcinogenic,
developmental, pre-natal, and fertility-related harms, PFAS are present everywhere
due to their use in chemical fire extinguishers, use in manufacturing, as well
as in everyday products like nonstick frying pans and takeout containers (2). PFAS
are held together by strong chemical bonds that make it impossible for them to
break down naturally, which subsequently calls for a need to break down the
chemicals through artificial means, or else these toxic chemicals will continue
to accumulate in larger and larger quantities in our food, water, and our
natural ecosystems.
Destroying PFAS
The challenge when it comes to removing PFAS in the environment (3),
is that the Carbon Fluorine bonds in PFAS are extremely difficult to break,
requiring processes that can often be energy-intensive, time-consuming, and or
unable to completely break down the PFAS molecules (3). The engineering team at
Aquagga seeks to destroy PFAS using a process called Hydrothermal Alkaline
Treatment or HALT to destroy PFAS (3).
In the HALT process, the PFAS-contaminated wastewater is
brought to high temperature, high-pressure, and high PH conditions which break down
the PFAS molecules into smaller and smaller chains until they become “inert
fluoride salts.”(4) According to Aquagga, they choose HALT as the method of
breaking down PFAS over other processes because of HALT is highly effective, time
and energy efficient, can treat wastewater with different levels of salinity,
and the only byproducts are water, fluoride salts and carbon dioxide(3).
Aquagga plans to offer three different scale treatment
systems ranging for water treatment from the Pilot series which can treat 2-20
gallons per hour, all the way to the Stampede series which can treat water at a
rate of 80 to 800 gallons per hour. So
not only have they chosen an effective PFAS-destroying technology, they’re also
designing a versatile range of systems around the HALT process to treat wastewater at any scale (3). As of now development has been completed on the Pilot series and is still undergoing for the Steed and Stampede series.
Ways to get Involved!
For anyone who would like to support Aquagga there 2 ways to
get involved.
Aquagga is Currently Looking for
o
1 mechanical design engineer -couple years of experience preferred
o
1 hardware test engineer – couple years of experience
preferred
o
1 operations manager
o
1 technical business development manager
Click here
for more info.
Final Thoughts
Aquagga is developing their technology around the game-changing
Hydrothermal Alkaline treatment as a revolutionary solution to PFAS contamination
in water. Aquagga's technology has the potential to make a significant impact
in cleaning up contaminated water sources and protecting public health. As the
company continues to grow and expand, we can expect to see more cutting-edge
and innovative solutions from Aquagga.