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27 min ago 3 min read
US environmental tech firm Claros Techologies has completed a commercial-scale pilot of its PFAS destruction technology.
Its ClarosTechUV system destroys ‘forever chemicals’ (PFAS) at molecular level by combining high-intensity ultraviolet (UV) light with proprietary photochemical reagents.
The pilot was undertaken as the Swiss manufacturing campus of Bachem in Bubendorf, Switzerland.
Michelle Bellanca, CEO and Co-Founder of Claros Technologies, said it marked an important step forward for the global pharmaceutical industry.
“As pharmaceutical manufacturing expands, particularly around peptide therapeutics and GLP-1 medicines, the industry is increasingly confronting how to address ultra-short-chain PFAS such as TFA in industrial wastewater,” she said.
Unlike conventional PFAS treatment technologies that often require additional management and disposal, the patented ClarosTechUV PFAS destruction system is designed to permanently destroy PFAS at source.
Its technology cannot be directly used to treat gases but it marks a novel development as most PFAS trials are happening in high-temperature environments.
Last year US-based Aries Clean Technologies validated a commercial-scale fluidised bed gasification process. Their trials proved that the thermal conversion process eliminated 97% of PFAS from solids, breaking the compounds down during the high-temperature gas phase.
Regulatory bodies are moving away from banning individual PFAS chemicals one by one and instead proposing blanket bans on the entire class of over 10,000 synthetic compounds.
Critical components like valves, gaskets, seals, and pipe linings in gas manufacturing plants are heavily reliant on PFAS. If broad bans take effect without functional alternatives, maintaining and building gas infrastructure will become significantly more complex and costly.
A report by the UK’s Environmental Audit Committee proposed a ban on all non-essential uses of PFAS by 2027, allowing only strict, time-limited derogations for essential applications.
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Many specialised industrial and electronic gases, as well as refrigerants, fall under the broad chemical definition of PFAS. Blanket bans threaten to severely restrict the production, blending, and distribution of these highly lucrative product lines.
Growing scientific evidence links PFAS to an increased risk of certain cancers, led by official classifications from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Blood tests have found very high levels of a cancer-causing forever chemical in dozens of people living near a major chemical factory in the UK, according to new reports. The UK does not have any recommendations about acceptable PFAS levels in people, although the US and Germany do.
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