Alec Ajnsztajn: The Reactor That Destroys PFAS Instead of Just Capturing It
About this episode
Alec Ajnsztajn discusses his innovative approach to destroying PFAS contaminants rather than merely capturing them.
Between 97 and 99 percent of all humans have measurable levels of PFAS in their blood. Every major watershed on Earth has tested positive, including the Arctic and Antarctica. Until recently, every technology designed to address that contamination just moved it somewhere else. Alec Ajnsztajn is trying to end that, by destroying the molecules entirely. As co-founder and CEO of CoFlux Purification, Alec is commercializing a covalent organic framework reactor that captures PFAS and then destroys the carbon-fluoride bonds under UV light, converting the molecules into fluoride and CO2. No concentrated waste. No hazmat landfill. No incineration truck. The contamination is gone. What we cover: Why PFAS compounds are nearly indestructible: carbon-fluoride bonds are among the strongest in organic chemistry, which made them invaluable from Manhattan Project equipment to Teflon cookware to semiconductor photoresists, and also why they accumulate in human tissue indefinitely. How every mainstream treatment technology today (granular activated carbon, ion exchange resins) concentrates PFAS rather than eliminating it, and why that concentrated waste still has to be incinerated or injected…
More episodes of Liquid Assets
- Zach Hamilton: What's Really in Your Tap Water and Why PFAS Break All the Rules
- Terry Arko: Why the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Keeps Turning Green
- Why AI Data Centers Have a Water Problem: Stanford's Newsha Ajami
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