Heritage-Crystal Clean to expand wastewater treatment

ELGIN - Heritage-Crystal Clean Inc. said it has joined forces with Ohio-based Battellewill to tackle one of today's most formidable environmental challenges: the removal and destruction of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from wastewater.

Heritage-Crystal Clean will market and use Battelle's PFAS destruction technology in commercial applications. Crystal Clean will use these key technologies in its own wastewater treatment plants and at third-party landfills and wastewater treatment plants.

The implementation of this destruction solution is timely given the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's intention, as defined by its PFAS strategic road map, to undertake rule making to restrict PFAS discharges from industrial sources.

"PFAS properties are unique - they are oil and water repellent, temperature resistant and friction reducing - making them extremely difficult to remove," said Battelle PFAS Program Director Amy Dindal. "Unlike other treatment methods that can relocate the PFAS, like incineration or filtering, Battelle's Annihilator (technology) breaks the carbon-fluorine bond and destroys PFAS."