Tampa To Use Water Treatment Tech to Help Remove PFAS

The Tampa Water Department explores the potential benefits of using suspended ion exchange to ensure public drinking water supplies within the city are free of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

Suspended ion exchange effectively removes pollutants from the water and has been used to treat water, wastewater, and groundwater. This process uses resin bead ions to remove pollutants and replaces chemicals for water treatment, such as sulfuric acid and lime.

The department has been conducting tests at a wastewater treatment site, assessing the efficacy of the technology to reduce PFAS amounts in the water supplies. Sarah Burns, the department’s capital improvement program director, shared some of their plans and findings:

“We're beginning these tests to ensure that the downstream filters, once those organics are removed, will be able to take out PFAS. We will likely have some upgrades we’ll need to make, and we might need some more operational changes, for example, changing out filter media more frequently. But getting these organics out is a huge step toward the solution.”

Burns said the suspended ion exchange plant, which will begin construction in 2028 and finish in 2032, can treat 140 million gallons daily.

This decision to use suspended ion exchange was to comply with the EPA’s future regulation to limit the amount of PFAS in drinking water supplies to four parts per trillion. At the time of writing, the state’s treatment facilities register PFAS amounts exceeding the proposed limit.

Read the full article here to learn more about suspended ion exchange and the Tampa Water Department’s plans to remove PFAS.

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