St. Cloud Testing Machine to Eliminate Forever Chemicals From Solid Waste

(KNSI) — St. Cloud has been picked to partner with a pair of universities and a company to test a device to eliminate per-and-polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS or forever chemicals from solid waste at the wastewater treatment plant.

Barr Engineering Company, the University of St. Thomas, the University of Minnesota, and the City of St. Cloud will utilize 374Water’s commercial AirSCWO 6 system to measure the technology’s effectiveness in removing PFAS and other harmful chemicals from biosolids. St. Cloud Public Services Director Tracy Hodel explained to KNSI News, “We don’t generate the PFAS. It comes from what’s coming into our facility. So, our facility isn’t the generator of the PFAS, but it’s within the products that we produce. So we want to destroy that before it goes into the environment and into the area farmland.”

St. Cloud uses wastewater which is high in nitrogen and potassium, to produce fertilizer for farmers for free.

Hodel explained the machine uses “a process that provides a lot of heat and pressure at the exact moment that provides the ability for those components [PFAS] to be destroyed.”

The pilot program will take place over four months.

St. Cloud is one of two locations in the nation testing the product. A grant covers the project’s expenses.

___