Smoldering Treatment of PFAS in Soils

2024 Excellence in Environmental Engineering and Science™ Awards Competition Winner - Superior Achievement Award

Webinar Summary

Smoldering is a combustion process that occurs on the surface of a condensed (i.e., solid or liquid‐phase) fuel, converting organic material into primarily heat, carbon dioxide, and water. Commercially available smoldering remediation normally relies on the chemicals themselves to be the fuel that supports the combustion process above and below the water table or in above-ground treatment systems. Although PFAS can be present at significant concentrations relative to clean-up criteria, they are often still too low to support smoldering. Work conducted under SERDP has shown that adding a surrogate fuel, such as granular activated carbon at low concentrations, can support smoldering and generate high temperatures that can decompose PFAS. This presentation will describe the development of this technology, from laboratory studies to field scale implementation.

About the Presenter

David Major, Ph.D., BCES, is a Senior Consultant at Geosyntec/Savron in Cambridge, Ontario. David has developed and commercialized various remediation technologies in conjunction with Canadian, U.K., and U.S. Universities. He has served as a Principal/Co-Investigator or Project Manager for over 10 SERDP/ESTCP projects and was awarded the SERDP 2021 Project of the Year Award for Environmental Restoration for his work on the smoldering treatment of PFAS. David served on the U.S. EPA Expert Panel on DNAPL Remediation (The DNAPL Remediation Challenge: Is There a Case for Source Depletion) and the U.S. National Research Council Committee on Geological and Geotechnical Engineering in the New Millennium. He has received several awards, including the University of Waterloo Faculty of Science Alumni of Honour Award (2007) in recognition of his professional accomplishments; Space Hall of Fame® (2007) for helping NASA commercialize “Products from Space Benefiting Planet Earth”; ASTM C.A. Hogentogler Award (2015) and ICE Telford Premium (2016) awards for papers on ground improvement technology.  David led R&D programs that were recognized for national excellence in sustained and innovative academic-industrial collaboration with the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada Synergy Award 2009 and 2018.

Webinar Format

This webinar will include a moderated Q and A session following the speaker’s presentation. The session is open to environmental engineering and science professionals across all sectors and career stages. Our objective is to offer special insights on leading edge solutions for graduate and undergraduate students as well as early to mid-career environmental professionals who are considering specialty certification.

AAEES Board Certified Individuals: Attend this event and earn 1.5 PDHs towards your PDH requirements for maintaining your specialty certification.

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