Today, Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) is commonly used to treat PFAS contaminated groundwater on-site. The average removal efficiency of long-chain PFAS with GAC range from approximately 92 to 100%. However, this performance is drastically reduced when GAC is applied to short-chain PFAS and its removal efficiency decrease over time because of the GAC’s filter saturation (PFAS, organic matter, other contaminants). Therefore, these solutions present high operation and maintenance costs 0.35 €/m3 groundwater treated due to the short usage time. 

In addition, each PFAS contaminated groundwater site has their own specific conditions in terms of lithological variabilities, groundwater flow velocities, geochemistry, co-contaminants, organic matter, and types of PFAS, among others, which make the implementation of GAC more complex and reduce its standard efficiencies.

PFAS remediation technologies such as surface foam fractionation (SAFF), anion exchange filters (AEX), electrochemical oxidation (EO) and phytoremediation (PHYTO) have attracted increasing interest as alternatives or complements to conventional treatment methods. However, challenges related to site-specific conditions, treatment performance and implementation still need to be addressed for their wider application to PFAS-contaminated groundwater. An approach combining these remediation technologies, taking advantage of their complementary strengths, may improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of PFAS removal while addressing a broad range of PFAS-contaminated groundwater site characteristics.

LIFE SOuRCE evaluated and demonstrated an integrated treatment approach based on the combination of SAFF, AEX, EO and PHYTO for the remediation of PFAS-contaminated groundwater. The project assessed the performance, applicability and costs of the combined treatment train under different site conditions, with the aim of overcoming some of the limitations of conventional methods based on the use of granular activated carbon.