DESTROYING PFAS FOREVER

Massachusetts start-up AClarity pilots award winning plug and play system to destroy PFAS in landfill leachate to protect water, the environment, and human health

“About 50% of PFAS can be found in our landfill. We are focused on landfill leachate because when it rains the PFAS will naturally become evaporated into the rainwater and waterways. PFAS eventually make their way into our groundwater. In the United States there are more than 2000 landfills and hundreds of thousands of landfills across the globe. What we are doing is destroying PFAS forever in water and liquid waste.”

-- Julie Bliss Mullen, Founder & CEO AClarity

Interview with Julie Bliss Mullen, Founder & CEO AClarity

By Suzanne Forcese

WT: Julie, you invented AClarity’s primary technology as a PhD candidate at UMass Amherst. Please give us a brief glimpse of your background and the journey that brought you to found AClarity in 2017.

Mullen: I have a degree in environmental and sustainable studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. While at WPI I became a member of Engineers Without Borders (EBW), an organization dedicated to developing long-term solutions for communities.

I first learned of the growing issues with PFAS in drinking water at EWB.

Prior to my PhD I worked for the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency as an environmental engineer and regulator in the Drinking Water Unit in Boston. During this time my attention was drawn to the prevalence of PFAS in Cape Cod drinking water contaminated from firefighting foam and other sources.

I wanted to understand this problem and decided to concentrate my doctoral studies on methods for treating PFAS contamination in drinking water.

I developed a process to destroy various contaminants including PFAS in water. In 2017 I spun out AClarity.

WT: Please provide us with an overview of AClarity.

Mullen: Clean water is an issue around the world. After decades of PFAS chemicals being released from industrial sources. PFAS are in our rainwater, our groundwater, our rivers. PFAS have contaminated our drinking water. 200 million people in the United States have PFAS in their drinking water.

AClarity is a water treatment company. We develop and deploy proprietary electrochemical water treatment systems to destroy contaminants like PFAS, the ‘forever chemicals’.

WT: Among many of your awards and recognitions there are some impressive standouts. In 2019 you were recognized as part of the Forbes 30 Under 30 cohort in science; you won the Lemelson-MIT award for inventorship in 2019; and were named Innovator of the Year by the North East Water Innovation Network.

Most recently, you have been named among the Cleantech Group as a top global cleantech company for 2025. Congratulations! Plus, there was anotherannouncement at the recent Cleantech Forum North America in San Diego January 25-29, 2025. What does this mean for you?

Mullen: Alongside, and to our surprise, we also were awarded the Rising StarAward, which is awarded to this year's highest-ranked company of the companies making the list for the first time.

Water and public health are being recognized in Cleantech, and these worlds are finally connecting.

What was encouraging to see was the number of investors, corporates, insurance agencies converging and recognizing that PFAS are a big deal. It was refreshing that after so much focus on carbon sequestrations and greenhouse gas emissions – while nonetheless noble focal points – to see water’s pivotal time in the clean tech discussion. Water is finally having its moment.

WT: What can you tell us about the Team talent.

Mullen: We are very fortunate to have an amazing Team. From Michael Shaw, our award-winning vice-president of engineering to John Tracy, vice-president of business development to all our engineers, researchers and field specialists -- all with years of experience in the water industry – they have all come to AClarity drawn by our core mission.

It is because of our Team that AClarity is a Rising Star. This is a huge win for the environment and public health.

WT: How are you disrupting the industry?

Mullen: In contrast to numerous contemporary technologies, AClarity effectively destroys PFAS, whereas many commonly employed methods, like Granular Activated Carbon (GAC), merely extract PFAS. Consequently, an additional step for disposal, such as deep well injection or incineration, is often necessary, or in some instances, the extracted PFAS end up being reintroduced into landfills.

WT: Your focus on destroying PFAS in our water also intersects human health. Tell us more.

Mullen: PFAS are Teflon based chemicals called “forever chemicals” because they don’t degrade in the environment. They don’t degrade in our body. They are toxic and carcinogenic. There are so many health impacts – various types of cancer, developmental delays in children. About 98% of people have PFAS in their blood.

PFAS are ubiquitous. They are found in consumer goods like carpets and chairs, clothing, packaging, personal hygiene products, medical equipment and supplies, in the semi-conductor industry. Some products are useful and necessary while most are part of an end-of-life cycle.

It all ends up in landfill. About 50% of PFAS can be found in landfills. So, we are focused on destroying PFAS in landfill leachate because when it rains, PFAS will leach into the groundwater, will naturally become evaporated into the rainwater. This entire water cycle re-introduces PFAS back into the environment. 

AClarity’s electrochemical oxidation (EOx) can also destroy concentrates from reverse osmosis or ion exchange. We also can destroy PFAS from concentration technologies such as fractionated foam.

WT: Describe the basic technology.

Mullen: It’s an electro chemical oxidation process using electrodes that are charged. The PFAS contaminated water flows between two electrodes. The PFAS are adsorbed onto an anode surface. Free electrons break the Carbon Fluoride bonds, resulting in CO2, HF, F-. Oxidant radicals are generated and the PFAS are destroyed.

WT: As a young start-up you have reached your first significant milestone. What can you tell us.

Mullen: We have successfully deployed our first field system this past year thanks to the funding we received as winners of the Imagine H20 in the 2022 Urban Water Challenge

Commercializing something that nobody has ever done before -- having their support has already opened doors for us.

WT: How does your set-up work?

Mullen: When we destroy PFAS at a customer’s site we drive the pilot trailers to the landfill site. The contaminated water with PFAS flows in through a reactor and we mineralize these PFAS compounds. We break each component of the molecule down into non-hazardous compounds.

Our systems are fully skidded meaning that they have reactors pumps, power supply valves – everything in it is automated. That’s something that’s really unique in the industry because we are truly in the field operating in a single pass destroying PFAS for our customers.

Our customers can process wastewater with PFAS anywhere from 10,000 to 200,000 gallons per day.

We take all the risk out of PFAS destruction for our customers and we also work closely with them with our “destruction as a service” model. And of course we welcome them to partner with us.

WT: What’s next for AClarity?

Mullen: More deployments. We’re looking to get more mobile trailers out in the field.

At AClarity we share a vision of destroying PFAS forever and we can picture a world where we don’t have PFAS.