Turning the tide on toxic waste: H2Plus and the future of on-site PFAS destruction
Iain Hoey
Share this content
Aaron Ellis, Chief Marketing Officer at H2Plus, discusses scalable on-site PFAS destruction technology, trial data, cost comparison, regulatory readiness, and future industrial applications
Most PFAS treatments capture harmful compounds but leave behind a concentrated waste that still needs managing.
“H2Plus takes a different approach,” says Aaron Ellis, Chief Marketing Officer at H2Plus.
“Our mobile, plug-in system is designed to destroy PFAS on site, breaking them down into harmless by-products without the need for secondary processing.”
The company has trialled the technology in challenging field conditions, showing strong results for both efficiency and cost.
“The next step is scaling the technology to municipal flows and high-salinity industrial streams,” he explains, “all while navigating tightening regulations on PFAS discharge.”
From desalination to chemical destruction
While piloting early prototypes for advanced water desalination, the H2Plus team partnered with a researcher at the University of Kentucky to validate the process and test it under different water chemistries.
During one of these sessions, Ellis recalls, the researcher posed a question that would completely change H2Plus’s trajectory: “Your technology is breaking down tough chemical bonds no one else can touch in desalination.
“Have you ever thought about applying it to PFAS?”
At the time, PFAS – often called “forever chemicals” – were starting to dominate environmental headlines.
They were being detected in drinking water, industrial wastewater, and landfill leachate across the United States, and regulators were scrambling to set enforceable limits.
Unlike desalination brine, which could be concentrated and discharged, PFAS could not simply be filtered or moved – they had to be destroyed at the molecular level.
“The comment from the University of Kentucky researcher stuck with us,” Ellis says.
The team ran small-scale experiments with its system on PFAS-laden water, and the results were clear: the process both removed PFAS and destroyed them at the source, breaking the carbon-fluorine bonds and rendering the contaminants inert.
That moment of realisation became the basis for a new direction at H2Plus.
Ellis notes that the same moment “crystallized our focus.” PFAS represented an environmental and public-health crisis with no viable destruction technologies ready for large-scale deployment.
He adds that the company’s expertise, combined with its system’s unique chemistry and automation capabilities, put H2Plus in a position to solve a problem that governments, industry, and communities were desperate to address.
By pivoting from desalination to PFAS destruction, H2Plus positioned itself at the intersection of regulatory urgency, environmental stewardship, and advanced science.
Today, the company designs and deploys scalable PFAS destruction systems for landfills, industrial wastewater plants, and municipalities – “turning what began as a ‘what if?’ moment in a University of Kentucky lab into a mission to eliminate forever chemicals from water supplies nationwide,” Ellis says.
How the system works
To understand how the system works, it is helpful to explain the role of hydrated electrons.
“Our system uses a proprietary gas energized through a low-voltage current to produce hydrated electrons – highly reactive, short-lived particles – directly at the water’s surface,” Ellis explains.
“PFAS molecules are drawn to the surface of these gas bubbles, where the hydrated electrons rapidly target and break the extremely strong carbon-fluorine bonds.
“This process destroys PFAS, turning them into non-harmful components like water, CO₂, sulfate, and calcium fluoride.”
What field trials revealed
Ellis says the trials the team ran at Michigan and Tennessee landfills showed how robust the system really is.
Those trials proved that the system can treat some of the dirtiest water other technologies cannot handle.
In Michigan and Tennessee, the engineers processed raw landfill leachate with more than 1,000 ppm total suspended solids (TSS) and as much as 37,000 ppm total dissolved solids (TDS) – with no pre-filtration or chemical adjustment required.
Despite these extreme conditions, the process achieved roughly 99 % destruction of PFAS – including long-chain compounds – and delivered treated water under 4 ng/L for PFOA and PFOS.
“We use third-party testing to rigorously verify our system’s performance,” Ellis notes.
All trials include third-party analysis by certified laboratories such as Symbio and Infinite Chemical, with sample collection overseen by site engineers.
The team tests influent, treated effluent, and any foam.
In both landfill studies, verified destruction rates reached up to 99 %, and post-treatment PFAS levels were at or below 4.0 ng/L – well under the current EPA threshold.
Reducing costs and avoiding liability
Compared with other treatment methods, Ellis says, the H2Plus approach is both cost-efficient and energy-conscious.
Other destruction methods – for example, supercritical water oxidation, incineration, or ultrahigh-temperature thermal systems – require massive capital outlays, specialty pretreatment chemicals, and energy to reach extreme temperatures.
The cost to install and operate is significantly higher and often does not account for long-term liabilities.
Conversely, many filtration-based treatments generate PFAS concentrates – such as activated carbon or ion-exchange resin – that must then be disposed of in landfills, creating legal and environmental liability, especially if contamination spreads, regardless of whether the polluter was the original source, as seen in several Synagro-related cases.
Ellis contrasts these methods with the H2Plus system, which, he says, “operates without filters, chemicals, or sludge, uses modest energy with no need for incinerators or high-temperature thermal processes, and costs around $0.09 per gallon – less than half the cost of foam-fractionation methods, which range from $0.23 to $0.45 per gallon and do not destroy PFAS.”
This combination dramatically reduces both capital and operating expenditures and eliminates downstream liability risks.
Flexibility in deployment and scalability are central to how H2Plus designs and operates its systems.
The unit can function as a standalone system, fully mobile in a 40-foot container capable of 50 GPM, or serve as a secondary treatment step – for example, destroying PFAS captured by pretreatment methods instead of sending them to landfill.
Municipal operators can plug the unit into existing PFAS-handling workflows, whether they already filter or capture PFAS.
The mobile connector design also enables deployments at beverage-bottling facilities, textile plants, airports, or any site facing PFAS scrutiny, with no site preparation needed.
“Operators often ask about by-products, and our process gives them peace of mind,” Ellis says.
He explains that PFAS molecules are fully mineralized into harmless by-products – water, CO₂, sulfate, and calcium fluoride – with no toxic intermediates, sludge, or secondary contaminants.
Independent third-party laboratory testing of treated water assures operators that no hazardous or unknown by-products are formed.
H2Plus has aligned its system with evolving regulatory limits in both the United States and Europe.
The EPA’s National Primary Drinking Water Regulation maintains enforceable limits for PFOA and PFOS at 4 ppt, with compliance deadlines extended to 2031.
The agency is also reviewing its approach to other PFAS compounds such as GenX, PFHxS, PFNA, and PFBS, which may become regulated in future rule-making cycles.
Ellis emphasizes that H2Plus consistently achieves treated water at or below 4 ng/L for PFOA and PFOS, meeting EPA standards and placing the company in a strong position for evolving U.S. and EU regulations.
The company is actively pursuing formal certifications through EPA verification programs, NSF certification, and state-level remediation authorities, and it is in early pilot-validation discussions with the Department of Defense and major industrial water partners.
The technology can also be deployed to tackle the rising issue of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) runoff.
“AFFF runoff often contains extremely high PFAS levels, sometimes orders of magnitude above landfill leachate,” Ellis explains.
He notes that H2Plus can be installed downstream of foam-fractionation units to destroy the concentrated PFAS foamate or act upstream as a direct destruction step, avoiding the need for pre-concentration.
Because the mobile, plug-and-play unit allows airports or training facilities to destroy PFAS on site, it prevents runoff into the environment and eliminates the need for off-site disposal of concentrated waste.
Pathways to wider adoption
Looking ahead, Ellis says the company is focusing on strategic partnerships and technical scaling to increase its impact.
“The greatest expansion will come from partnerships with major landfill operators, industrial water-treatment firms, municipal water systems, and defense contractors,” he explains.
“Technically, we’re investing in AI-driven automation and increasing throughput to drive down per-unit costs.
“A strategic partnership or program-level rollout – such as through the Department of Defense or large waste-management entities – would dramatically accelerate adoption, shifting the industry from PFAS containment to full PFAS elimination.”