The effort to clean up persistent contaminants in water is gaining momentum through a new partnership between Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Proficio Consultancy, an engineering and fabrication firm based in Lisle, Illinois. Together, they are developing a water treatment system tailored for use with electron beam accelerators.
“This partnership highlights how we can combine cutting-edge national lab research with local small business ingenuity to tackle some of our most pressing problems,” said Chris Edwards, engineering project manager at Fermilab.
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — commonly known as PFAS or forever chemicals — are used in a multitude of industrial and consumer products and often end up in the environment. These chemicals, which are difficult to destroy due to their strong carbon-fluorine bonds, may have harmful effects on human health, so it is critical to remove them from water supplies.
Electron beam technology offers a promising solution.
Experts at Fermilab’s Illinois Accelerator Research Center — also called IARC — are developing a compact superconducting accelerator that generates electrons capable of destroying PFAS. Prior research at IARC has proven that electron beams can effectively break the carbon-fluoride bonds and render the resulting chemicals harmless, unlike most conventional water treatment methods, which produce secondary waste streams.
Maximizing PFAS breakdown in water requires carefully controlled treatment conditions. Proficio Consultancy will work closely with IARC to design and develop a specialized water treatment skid system that will ready PFAS-laden water for efficient electron beam irradiation, a process that safely uses radiation to break down unwanted chemicals. After treatment, the water treatment system will condition the water, ensuring it is safe to use or ready for further processing.
“This pre-treatment and conditioning system is critical to unlocking the full potential of our electron beam accelerator for environmental cleanup applications,” said Edwards.
The initial design will ensure the system integrates with Fermilab’s compact accelerator, allowing the continuous flow and irradiation of PFAS-laden water. In the future, the design can be scaled into a full-sized, field-deployable accelerator capable of treating large volumes of contaminated water.
The compact, modular skid will contain advanced instrumentation, including a control system that regulates water flow and monitors temperature, pH and oxygen levels, along with special pipes. Its flexibility to operate under a wide range of conditions — such as feed rate, batch size, pH level and nitrogen flow rate — will enable it to be optimized for a variety of water treatment applications and scaled up in the future.
“With decades of multi-disciplinary engineering experience, Proficio Consultancy is uniquely positioned to complete cradle-to-grave projects such as this PFAS water treatment skid system,” said Eddie Jaramillo, president and chief executive officer at Proficio Consultancy. “We are excited to work with Fermilab on this project.”
IARC’s mission to help industry adopt Fermilab-developed technologies is paving the way for scalable, cost-effective solutions to PFAS contamination. Partnerships between national laboratories and local small businesses strengthen regional innovation ecosystems and support the U.S. Department of Energy’s goals for technology transfer and commercialization.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research. Fermi Forward Discovery Group manages Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on social media.
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