SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) are a group of >5,000 chemicals used across wide ranging applications from water-repellent surfaces to Aqueous Film-Forming Foams (AFFF). These “forever chemicals” are known to cause critical health conditions and are not degraded by normal hazardous waste treatment methods. The Air Force has spent $546M on PFAS actions to date and has an indetermined, but extremely large volume of PFAS-contaminated water that will require proper disposal. Currently used incineration methods are halting around the US due to concerns of ineffectiveness, and landfilling is expected to soon be banned. AxNano LLC has developed RemRx™ ZVI, a patent-pending zero valent iron/nickel (FeNi)-carbon composite engineered to trap and degrade environmental contaminants through effective reductive chemistry. The main objective of this Phase II SBIR is to pilot test a RemRx™ ZVI-enabled treatment train unit to degrade PFAS in a retention pond at Tyndall AFB. Laboratory tests will inform the unit build and design, and we will test the unit’s ability to degrade PFAS constituents in brine obtained from a run-off retention pond at the firefighting training facility. The final objective of Phase II is to design a full-scale treatment unit and identify partners, mechanisms, and timing for full-scale demonstration in Phase III. Additionally, this SBIR collaboration is led by two female inventors and principal investigators, meeting the SBIR/STTR funding agency initiatives to engage diverse entrepreneurs.
