All right, welcome everyone to the Park Innovation Flow Podcast. Thanks for being here today. The Park Innovation Flow podcast is where we talk about park projects, research, technology innovations going on in the wastewater space. And today we have a great innovator, a great wastewater innovator with us, Andy Sifolko from Brown and Caldwell. And Andy is the national. I want to get this right. There's a lot of words, national technology leader, site investigation, remediation, and solids waste at Brown and Caldwell. But we kind of know him around here as the PFAS guy, and he's here to talk a little bit about PFAS research that he's been doing. Thanks for being here today, Andy.

Thanks for having me. Blair, excited to be joining you.

Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad you can make it in. I've been looking forward to talking about biochar, pfas, all of it. So before we get there, could you just tell the listeners little bit about your background, where you came from, where you're going, and, you know, some hobbies that you like to do?

Sure, yeah. I'll try to truncate my life story here.

Yeah, we need it quick.

Yeah, yeah. So my name is Andy Sifulco, environmental engineer at Brown and Caldwell. I am the national technology and innovation leader for our site investigation, remediation and solid waste practice. Did my undergrad at CU Boulder, did my graduate work at up the road here at Colorado School of Mines, and that's kind of where I cut my teeth on PFAS and kind of have been focusing in that area ever since. My background is largely in that site investigation and remediation space. But as PFAS has cut cross sectionally across the environmental space and industry at large, throughout provided me an opportunity to kind of spread my wings and get involved in some other areas and supporting our municipal clientele and wastewater and drinking water and water reuse applications as well.

Yeah, seems like you've grown with pfas. It seems like. Was that where you first heard about it, as in school, or was it around before then?

Yeah. So I was kind of tracking PFAS as an emerging contaminant for a while, and then in 2019 I took a consulting sabbatical and went back to graduate school with the whole focus of really honing in and focusing really on PFAS and applied PFAS treatment technologies at Colorado School of Mines, which happens to be a nationwide leader in PFAS related research that's in our backyard.

So cool.

Yeah, it worked out. And then after I wrapped that up did my research and my thesis, joined Brown and Caldwell and got involved with some of the stuff that we're doing here at South Platte and Park.

Nice. So you took a sabbatical and you chose to go back and get a graduate degree in engineering, huh?

That's right.

That's right. Seems like there's so many choices there.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. You know, a bit of a glutton for punishment, but I've always enjoyed school so it was nice to get back into the academic setting for a little while and have definitely a more flexible schedule.

Yeah. Was it different? The different Going back as a non traditional grad student and when you were in cu?

Definitely, yeah. Yeah. I would say that, you know, had. It had a different level of focus on, on round two. Yeah. But I was definitely the, you know, the elder states person in my research group. Had a lot more gray hairs than, than most of my cohort and, and you know, brought a different perspective. I would recommend, you know, for folks that have maybe been considering going back to graduate school and are sitting on that, you know, maybe they're thinking they're past that point in their life. I found it to be really, really valuable and really rewarding and would recommend it to anybody that's considering it.

Yeah, yeah, I found the same thing. I went back after I worked for a while, probably five or six years and then went back. And it's different because you like, know about the industry. You're more like, you say you're more focused on, on the issues. You're more, you know, disciplined I think and it's just a whole different experience but. Well, cool. What about hobbies? What do you like to do when you're not, when you're not doing remediation and investigations?

Yeah, I like to, you know, do a lot of the typical Colorado things. I like to spend time outside, spend time with my wife and my dog. I'd say probably my single biggest hobby is fly fishing. So I enjoy fly fishing here in the watersheds up and down the Front Range of Colorad and occasionally make a trip outside the state somewhere to, to go fly fishing.

Nice. How long have you been doing that?

I've been fly fishing 20 years now. Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah. Still not any better at it than the day I started, man. It's a real craft. I haven't graduated it tying my own flies and all that stuff, but yeah.

Cool. Yeah. I was at a, a brewery a few weeks ago and there was a fly tying club there and there's all these old guys dying flies on his equipment. It looked pretty cool.

Yeah. Special group of people.

Yeah. You know, y. I thought I should get in there. I don't even fly fish, but those guys look cool.

Yeah.

All right, well, how about the interesting question here I got for you? If your job was made into a reality TV show, what would it be called? What would be the name of that show?

Well, I guess if I was gonna maybe model it after an existing reality TV show, I would call it Survivor.

Nice.

And I guess maybe the reason why I say that is, you know, there's certainly the kind of community aspects of it, the. Maybe the political aspects of it. The challenges are different every day, just like in the show Survivor, and you never know when that blindside is, you know, where it's coming from. But, yeah, I think maybe more than that. It's about, like, in engineering, you know, figuring out how to do more with less. You know, if there were no resource constraints, you know, engineering would be a relatively straightforward task. But, you know, we're always bounded by some sort of condition. And so you're trying to figure out how to optimize that. That solution within those confines. And, you know, I don't know, just the folks on Survivor, it's amazing what they can figure out how to do with a machete and a coconut. So. Yeah.

Yeah, that show. I'm amazed how long that's been on. I remember when it first came out because we had a Survivor party. This was. I don't know how long it's been on, but a long time ago. And now you still see Jeff Probs. He doesn't look that much different. Yeah, he's.

Yeah, whatever he's doing, he's. It's all those co. Coconuts he's eating, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. On the avocado diet or something. But, yeah, he's aging well. And, yeah, they've been getting after it for a while.

Well, cool. Well, let's get back into the. Well, not back in. Let's dive into the scientist. Let's start this podcast. We could talk all day about nothing, but let's talk about that. Let's talk about PFAS and the project you were involved in. But I think before we get to your project, for the listeners and viewers out there who don't know what PFAS is, maybe give a brief overview of what that even means.

Yes, yes. PFAS is a acronym that stands for PER and polyfluoroalkyl substances. So commit that to memory. There'll be a lot of acronyms in.

This stuff and we're gonna have to have you explain every one.

Yeah, perfect. All right, let me know, Let me know if I'm, you know, need to dive back in and do a, do a refresh on any of the acronyms. PFAS PER and Polyfluoroalkyl substances is a class of synthetic organic contaminants. Synthetic meaning that they're largely man made. There's very few examples, if any, of naturally occurring PFOS chemistries. They were developed in the 1930s, 1940s, and rapidly gained popularity in numerous applications spanning commerce and industry and manufacturing. And in part because they did a lot, they do a lot of things really well. They can impart specific properties onto products like oil and grease and water resistance. So in that capacity, they're typically applied to textiles and carpets. You know, so raincoats. Scotchgard is a famous example of a PFAS containing textile treatment, food packaging. You know, what your hamburger comes wrapped in, you don't want the grease to soak through that. So historically those have contained pfas. Also used in firefighting foams, used by firefighters in fighting what they call class B fires. So those are like flammable fuel fires. Anyway, big family of compounds that did a lot of things well and became really popular.

But.

But there's the big but. Yep. But they really, in most of those properties that made them so popular also contribute to some of the environmental challenges that they pose. One of those being that they're very stable in the environment. So they don't break down on meaningful time scales in the environment. So there's not a lot of that kind of natural attenuation from that kind of breakdown perspective. Then you get into the toxicity side of things where the concentrations of concern in the environment through potential exposure pathways to humans or other ecological receptors are really low. So that's a new challenge. We're talking about parts per trillion concentrations of concern in pfas, which is kind of new territory for us in the contaminant space. Then how mobile they are is another contributor. Once they get into the environment, because they're so stable, they don't break down. They, they end up circulating through the, through our natural and engineered systems and accumulate in different areas and sources and sinks. And pretty much all the PFAS that has been released in the environment to date is still floating around out there somewhere. And we're working on trying to figure out ways to break that PFAS cycle. But that's really the challenge that our industry is facing, is that they're stable, they're mobile, and they're toxic.

Yeah, yeah. As far as toxicity, a lot of them, they think they might be carcinogenic. Is that right?

Yeah, those kind of things. Yeah. The whole family of PFAS compounds, right. We're talking hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions, depending on how you define what is pfas. But certainly some of the more well studied PFAS compounds are classified as likely human carcinogens. So have that cancer, you know, endpoint potential as far as adverse health outcomes related to exposure.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right, well, how about taking us a little bit about. Through your project, your research effort. I know it involved first. Yeah. I think we got to define these terms that involve biosolids. Right, right. Give us a quick. Give us a quick once over on what biosolids are.

Yeah.

Then we'll tie them all together.

Perfect. Yeah. We'll wrap our thread through this whole thing before we're done. Biosolids, you know, so biosolids. You. You might. I'd welcome your take on what biosolids are. I'll give it a. I'll give it a first pass. But we're certainly. You know, I am not a conventional wastewater treatment person by. By background, so I'm starting to wade out of my. My kind of technical comfort zone here. But biosolids are essentially, you know, I guess it really starts with sewage sludge. Right. Sewage sludge is the solid phase residual from wastewater treatment. And historically, there was a distinction between sewage sludge and then biosolids. Biosolids were. Was the sewage sludge that underwent additional treatment to promote some sort of beneficial reuse. And historically, that's been land application. There's a couple of other examples of that. But nowadays, I think sewage sludge and biosolids kind of get used interchangeably. You know, I think from a, you know, conversational standpoint that when people say biosolids, they might be referring to sewage sludge at large. But any. Anything I missed on that one?

Yeah, the whole sewage sludge, if you say that to a wastewater person, they're. They're like, what? What? We don't say that anymore.

See, there you go. The rebranding effort. I missed out on that.

Well, sludge is like the raw stuff. So, you know, the stuff that you settle out. I think of that as sludge because it's raw, untreated. Once it goes in the digester, the bacteria worked on it for 30 days. You. I mean, mostly that's dead bacteria. That's the byproducts of Those reactions. And so it's really a whole. If you set a thing of raw sewage sludge, you know, from the bottom of a clarifier next to biosolids, it's a world. It's two different products, right? Yeah, so I think that's the main thing, but yeah, it is. You're exactly right. The solids portion, that's gotta go somewhere. And a lot of it goes to fields. As far as land application, some of it goes to landfills at different places or even incineration are the methods. But. All right, and now we got biosolids out of the way. We got PFAs. And so how did you. What does your project involve?

Yeah, so, I mean, I guess we can talk a little bit about the biosolids PFAS intersection first. So wastewater treatment facilities, municipal wastewater treatment facilities are, you know, what we might call passive receivers of PFAS impacts. Right. The wastewater treatment facility itself is not. Not imparting any additional PFAS through, you know, the treatment process at all. All the PFAS is coming into the. Into the plant from industrial dischargers, from people using PFAS containing products in their homes. Pharmaceuticals, you know, floor wax, again, all these things. Scotchgard, all these things that, you know as PFAS worked its way into the. Into the consumer space. And so that PFAS comes into the plant and PFAS within that, that family of compounds kind of spans a range of physical and chemical properties. Some of the PFAs prefer to be in the solid phase versus being in the liquid phase. You know, so they'd like to be stuck to a solid versus being dissolved in the. In the, you know, the effluent or the, you know, the liquid portion of the wastewater. So when, you know that biosolids residual is generated through the wastewater treatment process, there's a portion of that incoming PFAS that accumulates in that biosolids fraction. And as we get to know more about pfas and the potential risks associated with them, that the land application piece, you know, as a. As a beneficial reuse alternative for biosolids, has been threatened by the presence of PFAs. So, you know, we land apply biosolids because of the great nutrient value that they can impart in an agricultural setting, you know, like a fertilizer. And, boy, is that a great way to, you know, as opposed to filling up our landfills with these materials, we can beneficially reuse them in a, you know, agricultural setting. Yeah, but unfortunately, you know, PFAS and the presence of PFAS in these biosolids is beginning to threaten the viability of land application because there's uncertainties regarding, okay, well, where does that PFAS go once it's been land applied in those biosolids? Is it getting into the groundwater? Is it, you know, ending up in the crops somehow? And so there's some states have, have already looked at legislation. Some states have gone as far as banning the land application of biosolids, which is, you know, a scary thing to consider.

Yeah.

And so that's, that's what kind of gave rise to this, to this research question, which I can go into now. Unless you want to. Unless you have any.

Now's the time. Yeah.

Okay. So we kind of set up. Right. That PFAS and PFAS and the biosolids intersection threatens this conventional land application approach. And I think about, check my numbers here, about 50% of biosolids produced in the United States are land applied.

Yeah. And I think part of it, just to throw in, you know, I think the biggest threat is the unknown. I don't know. You know, I don't think we've established that there's a, a harm to land application, but it's. That whole PFAS is bad. We know some of it's in the biosolids, so is, you know, and I think there's studies and people are looking at that. But I think, you know, with a lot of things, biosolids, it's the unknown is usually what would get you.

Right. And that is the driver right now. I mean, I think again, some of these states have, for, you know, their own reasons, gone as far as the outright ban on land application. But in large part, the science is still developing, our understanding is still developing regarding the potential risks here. So, yeah, there's certainly not definitive risk out there in most areas, and that's an active area of study. So, yeah, our research project really kind of looked beyond, you know, okay, so let's say that if land application is threatened or just even exploring an alternative valorization of biosolids, you know, alternative beneficial reuse, that isn't land application. What, what might there be and how might it help with our PFAS problem?

I love that. I love the how might we do something different questions. Yeah.

So, yeah, we teamed up with SPR and some other collaborators to evaluate how would biochar that is principally derived from municipal biosolids potentially be used to one, manage the, you know, meet the typical biosolids management objectives, which are, you know, essentially disposing of those biosolids again, when you use them in land application, that's a beneficial reuse. But where that's not available, they use sewage sludge incinerators like you were saying, they can send them to landfills. So if we look at those as management alternatives, if land application is off the table or we want to explore something differently, what might we do? There's this concept of pyrolizing the biosolids and making a biochar. And that biochar could have different beneficial reuse endpoints. And one that we evaluated was its use as an adsorbent, specifically as an adsorbent for pfas.

What is, what is pyrolizing? What does that entail?

Yes. Yeah.

If I want to pyrolyze something, what do I gotta do?

Yeah, yeah, you gotta talk to a guy. I got a guy. If you want to pyrolyze something or. So pyrolysis in general is a thermal process. And it's a thermal process at a relatively high temperature. So we're talking, you know, there's a whole science that underpins pyrolysis and there's a lot of variance and nuance to it. It can, whatever, how long. I don't need the temperature. Yeah, exactly. We're not going to go into all that, but it's essentially a thermal process, you know, 300 to 800 degrees Celsius in a next to zero or zero oxygen environment. So you're not combusting the, the actual material. You are using that thermal process to change its, its properties.

So it's not ash?

It's, it's not ash. No, ash is more of a, like, you know, you can really, you can take it to that ash endpoint. But the, the, a lot of the, the goal of pyrolysis applications is to end up with this biochar, which you can think of as like the charcoal that might be left over in your campfire. You know, that stuff that's at the bottom that's kind of like not exposed to a ton of oxygen and just kind of simmers down there. Yeah, that's really what the, you know, an analog to the process.

Okay.

And it's like a cousin of granular activated carbon, you know, so you do a sim similar thing with granular activated carbon. You first, you pyrolize it. You take that feedstock, whatever you're going to use, if it's, you know, bituminous coal or coconut shell or whatever the feedstock is for the granular activated carbon, you pyrolyze it, but then you subject it to an additional step of activation where you really get that like porous structure and those are more adsorbent oriented properties versus the biochar kind of ends at that, at that pyrolysis process. Conventionally, biochar is typically used in, you know, land application, like a soil amendment. You know, you can till it into the soil. Almost like. Like a land application. Yeah, Kind of scenario where it's not really imparting as much nutrient benefit, but it is helping with like the soil properties and making nutrients more bioavailable and things like that. Yeah.

So you said, can we take this biochar material and treat. Treat it. PFAS with it?

Yes. Yeah. So it's like a killing three birds with one stone kind of situation here. Yeah, we were, you know, two birds not enough. We had to go with the three bird scenario.

Ambitious, I like that.

Yeah, certainly. So, yeah, it was. Okay. Can we manage the biosolids? Right. So if we have pfas impacted biosolids, you need to do something with it. Right. And so let's just say under the scenario, Blair, if, if you couldn't land, apply biosolids, what would be your, your plan B?

Plan B would, you know, likely be composting. But if that was not an option, then landfill, I think would be the next because there's no incinerators in Colorado that I know of.

Right, right. And so then there's that the whole landfilling thing is also like suspect or questionable at times because one, there's a, there's a landfill capacity issue. So not all landfills are really set up to take all of a sudden that huge additional volume of biosolids. And then there's also issues related to actually landfilling the biosolids themselves as far as their structural stability and what they might do to the landfill and what.

It might do, I mean, like, it would just kill me because it's like you have this highly dense, you know, moist material with full of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, all that. The crops love moisture, phosphorus, nitrogen. And you're going to wait, you know, you're not going to recycle that. You're going to waste that and just lump it in a. Fill up a landfill so you can dig another one, you know.

Right, yeah, exactly. Nobody wants a bigger landfill or a new landfill in their backyard these days. So. So that is a strain on that system. So in the absence of those two options, comes into, you know, pyrolysis. And some, some entities are challenged with this right now in the in the US as far as, you know, can't land apply, can't landfill. What are we doing? Biosolids comes into play, or pyrolysis comes into play as an option to reduce the volume of those biosolids and stabilize them. Right. So you're really, there's no pathogen risk. And in the process of pyrolysis and some of the, you know, the stack gas treatments, the science is telling us that we're getting a lot, if not complete, you know, PFAS mineralization, you know, so PFAS destruction. So we're actually destroying the PFAS that's in those biosolids and then we end up with this, this biochar product that can we then turn around and use that to maybe treat PFAS in the liquid phase at a wastewater treatment facility. So is there some sort of really great closed loop, elegant solution that we can, you know, solve many of our problems with? So that was the, the ambitious goals of this study.

What did you, what did you find? How did it shake out?

So what we found was that, so what we did, I guess I could set up the study. We looked at three biochars that again are principally derived from municipal biosolids. And I say principally derived because sometimes they mix in other feedstocks, you know, the like woody waste and things like that. Because the, the feedstock that you use dictates in many ways the final properties of that of that biochar product. So sometimes they amend it with different things. Because to be quite honest, you know, straight up biosolids doesn't necessarily make the best, the most ideal feedstock for biochar generation. So biochar is from. Principally derived, principally derived from municipal biosolids. We had three of those. And we did an isotherm study which is like a way of evaluating adsorption performance. And we benchmarked it against one granular activated carbon. Kind of like the gold standard for PFAS adsorption as far as like a carbon based adsorbent is concerned.

What they used in drinking water plants.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Okay, so that would be kind of again like the, the, the, the bar that man, if we could get anywhere close to granular activated carbon performance and that would be a dream. And we looked at three different waters. We looked at laboratory water, like an ultra pure water where we spiked in PFOS concentrations of known, known quantity. Then we looked at treated wastewater effluent from your facility. And we also looked at a groundwater and we ran this big, you know, experimental matrix where we had all these different biochars and the GAC and all the different waters and different concentrations. And we ran this isotherm experiment and what we found was that biochar does, in that capacity where it was, you know, again, maybe not originally designed to be an adsorbent. It did have some significant adsorbed PFAS adsorption capacity. Importantly, it also didn't leach in our controls. The biochar from the biosolids didn't leach any detectable pfas, which was a good thing.

Yeah.

It did. It did underperform the granular activated carbon, which we expected. Yeah. And it might not be a fair comparison again because the granular activated carbon is really engineered and designed to be an adsorbent in that capacity. The biochar, not so much. And that kind of leads into maybe some of these future, future research efforts.

But in terms of like you took like a rebuilt Datsun and compared it to a Ferrari.

Exactly. You know what still gets you from point A to point B, though.

That's right.

So yeah, we, in terms of like, to what degree did it underperform? I guess, you know, we're still evaluating the data. It's kind of preliminary at this point and we're writing up the paper, but orders of magnitude, unfortunately, I guess, you know, it in terms of 10 times, 100 times lower adsorption capacity relative to the, to the GAC. But that doesn't tell the whole story in terms of how does this shake out against a granular activated carbon. Again, because you've got this, this treatment residual in, in the form of the biosolids that you need to do something with anyway. Right. So there really is a need for a more holistic life cycle assessment approach to better understand how does these biochars in an adsorption, you know, kind of capacity compare to things like granular activated carbon.

Cool. So did you, or are you going to explore maybe it doesn't work for, you know, water treatment, drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment. But have you looked at applications it may be suited for? Is that part of the study or where's the study headed from here? I guess.

Yeah. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't go as far to say that like it won't work in those, in those scenarios. I think it's just about figuring out how it might work.

Yeah.

And then there's other things like, you know, going back to like using biochar as a traditional, you know, soil amendment. Can we take that biochar that we've now generated and bring it to historical biosolids land application sites that might have residual PFAS impacts, work it into the soil and help kind of, you know, remediate those, those impacted plots, if you will. So those are all on the table. But I think really one thing that I'm personally interested in and you know, direction we're interested in taking this research is what, how, how well can we do with the biochar from biosolids if we go into that pyrolysis process with the idea of generating a functional adsorbent? Right. Like, if we're like, we want to use this and it's over, there's a lot of different levers that you can pull in the pyrolysis process. And then there's all those activation steps that we do with granular activated carbon that impart those properties. And so looking at, are we optimizing around even creating the best possible adsorbent that we can.

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. So this is right at the, the beginning maybe of the research. And then, yeah, if. So you did it without trying to optimize and now you're saying, what if we actually try to make the best possible thing we can.

Right.

How will that measure up to granular activated carbon?

Right. Because yeah, I think, you know, and there's many others at B.C. and outside of our organization that are much deeper experts in this particular area. But the traditional, you know, where. The few locations where we actually have operational pyrolysis units in the United States, it's not clear to me that the endpoint is actually generating a, again, a viable adsorbent. It's more about meeting those, those objectives of really reducing the volumes of biosolids residual that has to go to landfill and you know, breaking the PFAS cycle in the biosolids themselves by subjecting it to this, you know, destructive, you know, pyrolysis process. Yeah.

Well, that's interesting. Thanks for, thanks for sharing your research with this. I think it's great, the whole using a waste or you know, using I guess, the problem to solve the problem.

Right. Yeah, exactly.

Is interesting. And then just the whole, you know, you've learned a little and build on it and build a little more and see, see what you can come up with as far as technology and scientific advancement. So. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. And I'm, you know, I'll plug here that, you know, I'm a PFAS is really, it's a big problem. It's not, not necessarily insoluble I think we're gonna, we're gonna get there with solutions, but it is gonna take a community effort to get there. And there's a lot of groups that are working on this particular aspect in addition to all the other things that you FOS challenges us with. But, you know, folks up at csu, my colleagues Lloyd Winchell, John Ross are looking and in addition to many other groups are looking at, okay, how can we help solve these issues? Particularly again on that, you know, using the problem to solve the problem kind of thing in the biosolids pyrolysis space. And I am hopeful that, that we are definitely making great steps towards, you know, viable PFAS solutions.

Cool. Well, I'm glad we got you on the case. It sounds like we got the right man for the job.

I guess so. I don't know, hopefully.

Can you. We talked about pyrolysis, biochar, those kinds of things, but I know Brown and Caldwell and you are involved in some other PFAS work. Can you take us, give us a little, and I want to do a whole show on it at some point, but give us a little teaser, give us a little sneak peek into some other PFAS stuff going on around here.

Yeah, yeah. PARC has been in SPR and you know, the PARC center have been a great research collaborator for us. We're currently working on a WORF tailored collaboration to use investigate using machine learning approaches to help with PFAS source identification, which again will help with that whole passive receiver issue. Right. The wastewater treatment plants have really limited control of what's coming into their plant. And so they need to go and figure out, okay, who's sending them PFAs and then how do we control it? Using machine learning to really help identify those particular sources within the collection network and support those source control efforts. So that's one thing that we're actively working on. And then I guess that is in collaboration with some research partners out of the University of Oklahoma and our folks at bc. And then foam fractionation is a PFAS treatment technology that we're looking at. That work is being led by my colleague Andy Huffchester. And it's in the very early stages, but we're bullish on the concept of potentially being able to use foam fractionation at a meaningful scale in a wastewater treatment facility to potentially manage the PFAS impacts. Entering the, you know, entering the facility and, you know, the basis of foam fractionation, essentially introducing air into the PFAS impacted water and, you know, little bubbles at the bottom of a contactor and letting those bubbles rise up through the water column and collecting PFAS on their way up to becoming a foam.

Yeah.

At the top of the, at the top of the water column, you collect that foam and you know, it's, it's significantly enriched with, with pfas. And you know, under the right circumstances, you can get to really low treatment levels with a well operated foam fractionation system. And we're, you know, currently exploring the viability of this particular technology at the scale of a wastewater treatment facility and its ability to manage PFAS in the complex wastewater matrix that is, you know, municipal wastewater.

Yeah. All right. Well, that's great. It's amazing how much work there is going on to solve the PFAS problem and how many different ways people are coming at it from different angles. And it's good. I'm glad that you came here to share a few of them with us today.

Yeah, I'm happy to be here and always, you know, you know, I could rap about PFAS all day. You better cut me off. I don't know, we probably overtime.

Well, we got to do, we got to the end of show segment here. Before you go. So I told you I want to do some Two truths and a lie. Did you bring a two truths and a lie with you today?

I did. And you don't know, but I might be playing two lies and one truth.

Oh yeah, I don't know. All right, you want to go first you hit me with one, then I'll hit you with one. Or you want me to start?

You start.

Ok. All right. Okay. This is. Well, this is PFAS related. Here's my three statements. Lululemon leggings contain pfas. Toms of Maine toothpaste contains pfas. Household dust contains pfas. Which one? And you really cut right in my heart there.

What if I don't get this right? I will say, sheesh. Between the Lululemon and the Toms of Maine. I'm gonna go with the Toms of Maine contains pfas. Is the. That is the lie.

That is correct. All right. Although I just read because I was looking this up because Toms of Maine is supposed to be all n. Yeah, it was like the natural toothpaste, but they did. They are getting sued their mouthwash because they found PFAS in their mouthwash, which is also supposed to be natural, but they don't know if it's the bottling or what. But anyway, the toothpaste not supposed to have any in there, but lululemon. I get saturated with this stuff, so. Yeah, sweat will just drip right off.

I gotta. Yeah, Yeah. I should reevaluate my lululemon legging collection.

You should.

Yeah.

All right, what do you got?

All right, I. I went with with some personal stuff. Okay. So this is gonna see. How well do you know me, Blair?

Okay.

All right, here are my three statements.

Let's hear it.

I grew up with seven brothers and sisters.

Okay, let me. All right, let me get my pin here. Go ahead.

I am the 1998 Erie County Watermelon seed, spit and champ.

Oh, I like that.

And I once caught a 50 pound barracuda.

Oh, these are good ones. I'm gonna go with. Wait, where was the watermelon champion from?

Erie County.

Erie county. If you even know the county. I don't know. That one sounds legit. I'm gonna go with the barracuda. 50 pound barracuda and. No, no, no.

I did catch that. Yeah, it's the water mouse.

You know, man, if you wouldn't have the Erie county in there, I would.

Yeah, I got specific on. I added that, you know? Yeah.

All right, all right. I got one. These all. I tried to do a liver theme for you. I love to eat liver and onions. I've inspected thousands of cow livers. Or the human Liver performs over 500 functions. Which one of those is the lie? Mm.

You like liver and onions? The cow livers and the human liver.

Performs over 500 functions.

I mean, I know I'm putting my liver through the paces. I think it's doing at least 500. I'm gonna go with. You like liver and onions?

That is correct. Yeah. I wouldn't eat that stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

No. But I did a little. A little stint in the USDA as a food inspector inspecting cow livers and cow parts.

What'd you find?

Well, some of them are nasty. Most of them are good. I got out of that game.

Yeah. Stay tuned fol be back to learn more about Blair's time inspecting cow livers.

All right, you got any more? Did you just add that one?

I just had one more.

Okay. There's a robot that inspects sewers that's nicknamed the sewer shark. These are just random dissolved air flotation tanks use tiny bubbles to lift solids up. Our operators at wastewater plants often use pool noodles to stir sludge in the digesters.

I don't know if you could stir much with a pool noodle. You go. I. I think I'm going to go with that one.

That was too easy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought you'd think that was real. All right, well, that's, that's all I got. I think you hit them all and I lost. So you're the winner.

Hey, that's, you know, thanks for being a great host and letting you win.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I do for the guests. You can click your prize on the way out. But yeah, thanks for being here. This has been a great conversation. I look forward to having you back when more of that PFAS research of the foam fractionation or the fingerprinting as it progresses and talking to you again.

Thanks, Blair.

Looking forward to coming back for our listeners out there. Thanks for listening. The Innovation Flow Podcast. Thanks for sharing your time with us today. If you like the show, give us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening from. If you're watching on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe to the show and make sure you tell a friend, tell an up and coming school of mine student or a USDA liver inspector or whoever you know about the podcast and we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Innovation Flow Podcast.