WC142 MayJune 2025 - Magazine - Page 17
“As municipalities, we have to wait for clear federal directives from
Health Canada (HC) and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).”
City of North Bay is now exploring options to upgrade its water
treatment plant to treat PFAS, even though there is no funding
yet available. The nearby Jack Garland Airport was contaminated with PFAS (from fire suppression foam) for about 20 years,
starting in the early 1970s.
Treatment options
PFAS are difficult to destroy because they have strong carbon-fluorine bonds. Many different approaches have been tried. Electrochemical oxidation and plasma treatment, for example, offer only
incomplete destruction and both are energy-intensive. Similarly,
UV only destroys some PFAS and has diminished efficacy when
co-contaminants are present. ‘Supercritical water oxidation’ is ef-
fective, but the exothermic reaction requires specific infrastructure
and expert ongoing management.
However, several simpler and very effective solutions now exist,
even as HC, ECCC, and other federal agencies offered funding in
late 2024 for the development of Canadian “innovative, cost-effective, safe, and scalable solutions that lead to the destruction of
PFAS compounds across various contaminated solid or aqueous
media such as water, soil, and biosolids, as well as spent filtration
media such as granular activated carbon and resins.”
A Swiss company called Oxyle, for example, offers a reactor
that completely mineralizes PFAS in water, with no heat required.
There are also several processes—reverse osmosis, foam fractionation, and nanofiltration membranes—that effectively segregate
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