Thomas Holsen, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Selma Mededovic, Associate Professor of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering at Clarkson University’s Wallace H. Coulter School of Engineering, who started the business DMAX Plasma, LLC., have received a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the EPA. The grant will go toward further development of their plasma reactor, which helps eliminate Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a family of highly toxic substances.
Professors Thomas Holsen and Selma Mededovic Thagard pose in the CAMP lab with the enhanced contact electrical discharge plasma reactor, a novel method for degrading poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs).
The manufacture and disposal of PFAS containing substances has resulted in contamination of numerous water sources. There are a wide range of products containing PFAS: microwave popcorn bags, fast food wrappers, stain-resistant carpets and rugs, non-stick cookware, firefighting foams, ski wax and many others. Holsen and Mededovic have developed the technology to reduce PFAS concentrations below regulatory limits within 1 minute of treatment at 1 gallon
per minute flowrate. These removal rates are significantly better than the current leading treatments and with lower costs. With the grant, Holsen and Mededovic are improving the plasma-generating network and are working towards clearing the final hurdles towards a commercially viable reactor.
Holsen and Mededovic would both like to thank the IGNITE Pilot Grant Program Competition for their support. They were awarded a grant for their proposal during the March 2018 competition.
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