Water Treatment Systems and Technologies
1. Aquagga Inc.
Aquagga Inc., founded in August of 2019 by Nigel Sharp, Brian Pinkard, and Chris Woodruff, is a cleantech startup and environmental remediation service provider that aims to improve health equity and environmental justice through the destruction and safe disposal of PFAS. Aquagga “is leveraging their expertise as scientists and entrepreneurs to advance cutting-edge contaminant destruction technologies from the laboratory to the field to aid this global effort,” said Woodruff.
Aquagga’s containerized hardware takes waste-drain and breaks down PFAS so that it is safe for disposal. Aquagga’s technology uses high temperatures and pressures to break the carbon-fluorine bonds, mineralizing PFAS molecules and “producing nothing but a small amount of fluoride, clean water, and carbon dioxide,” according to Woodruff.
Aquagga’s Hydrothermal Alkaline Treatment (HALT) technology was awarded first place in in the EPA’s Innovative Ways to Destroy PFAS Challenge. Aquagga has also received grants from the National Science Foundation, the EPA, and the U.S. Air Force; it is actively working with the U.S. Department of Defense in helping remove and mitigate the spread of PFAS chemicals into the environment. https://www.aquagga.com/