Woodard, S. and M. Kuffer. | CRC Care International Cleanup Conference, 8-12 September, Adelaide, Australia, 16 slides, 2019

As part of its response to PFAS contamination from historical aqueous film-forming foam use, the Australian Department of Defence completed a detailed environmental site investigation of a >150 km² area that included Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal and surrounding private land. Results showed that PFAS had entered groundwater and migrated off-site toward the Katherine River. A water treatment system that combined regenerable ion exchange (IX) resins and a centralized regeneration system was installed at the Fire Training Area (contamination ≤40 µg/L) and Fire Station Area (contamination ≤50 µg/L) on the Tindal Base. Contaminated groundwater is extracted from wells located within the plumes and pumped to the treatment systems. The regenerable IX system uses a lead/lag/polish treatment train arrangement. When breakthrough is detected in the lead treatment vessel, it is removed and transported to the regeneration system, where the resin is processed using a solvent-brine blend, distillation for regenerant recovery/reuse, and super-loading to strip PFAS off the resin. The process takes ~ 6-8 hours to complete, after which the vessel is placed back into service. The regeneration process forms a highly-concentrated solids waste that minimizes PFAS waste generation at the Tindal site. http://adelaide2019.cleanupconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/M22f.pdf More information on the resin system treatment plants: https://www.defence.gov.au/environment/pfas/Tindal/managementactivities.asp.