ECT completes pilot-scale REM system for in-situ PFAS destruction

Overview

Australian environmental technology developer Environmental Clean Technologies (ASX: ECT) has announced the successful completion of its pilot-scale Rapid Electrothermal Mineralisation (REM) system, marking a concrete step towards commercial in-situ PFAS destruction. The company is targeting its first field demonstration in the second half of 2026, covering both contaminated soil and spent granular activated carbon (GAC) applications. For contaminated land practitioners, site auditors, and landowners managing legacy per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) liabilities, this development warrants close attention as a potential alternative to the remobilisation-focused approaches that have dominated remediation practice to date.

The REM technology operates by passing high-voltage, high-frequency alternating current directly through the soil matrix, generating temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius in the subsurface. These extreme temperatures are sufficient to sever the carbon-fluorine bonds that make PFAS compounds so persistent, converting them into inert, non-toxic fluoride salts rather than simply concentrating or transferring them to another medium. Developed under an exclusive licence from Rice University, the process draws on a subset of Flash Joule Heating (FJH) and has been progressively refined from a laboratory prototype to a field-deployable pilot unit.

The timing of this milestone is particularly relevant given the publication of PFAS NEMP 3.0 in March 2025, which introduced more stringent and risk-based guidelines for PFAS in soil, groundwater, and surface water across Australia. Regulatory pressure on traditional disposal pathways, combined with the scale of legacy contamination at airports, defence bases, and industrial facilities, has created genuine demand for technologies capable of permanently destroying PFAS on site. REM is one of only a small number of candidate technologies approaching field-scale validation in this space.

Key details of the REM pilot system and technology specifications

The completed pilot system delivers 22 kilowatts of electrical power, representing an 18-fold increase in output compared to ECT’s earlier laboratory prototype. The system operates at a frequency of 170 kilohertz and a voltage of 2,200 volts, characteristics that together enable the rapid resistive heating of the soil matrix to temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius. This thermal threshold is the critical parameter for PFAS mineralisation: the carbon-fluorine bond dissociation energy is among the highest in organic chemistry, and only temperatures in this range are reliably sufficient to achieve complete defluorination and conversion to fluoride salts.

One of the most commercially significant aspects of the pilot system is the elimination of conductive additives. Earlier laboratory iterations of REM required materials such as biochar to be introduced into the soil to enhance electrical conductivity and facilitate uniform heating. These additives added both direct material costs and operational complexity to the injection process, representing a meaningful barrier to field deployment. The 22 kilowatt pilot system achieves the required heating purely through the natural electrical resistance of the soil, removing this cost and logistical constraint entirely. ECT has not yet published peer-reviewed data on defluorination rates or treatment zone geometry at pilot scale, and independent field validation will be a prerequisite before the technology can be incorporated into site-specific remediation action plans.

The physical configuration of the pilot unit has also been substantially redesigned for field deployment. Compared to the laboratory prototype, the pilot system has achieved an approximately 50 per cent reduction in overall volume and a 75 per cent reduction in weight. These reductions allow the system to be mounted directly onto standard, commercially available construction and farming equipment for subsurface electrode deployment. This is a meaningful engineering milestone: in-situ thermal treatment technologies have historically been constrained by large, specialised surface infrastructure requirements that restrict their use on sites with access limitations or where surface disturbance must be minimised.

ECT is currently completing laboratory validation of the pilot system ahead of field trials. The planned 2026 field demonstrations will target two distinct application scenarios: direct treatment of PFAS-contaminated soil in situ, and destruction of PFAS that has been concentrated onto spent GAC media. The GAC application is particularly noteworthy because spent GAC from pump-and-treat systems represents a concentrated PFAS waste stream with limited disposal options under current regulatory settings. If REM can mineralise PFAS on GAC without requiring off-site high-temperature incineration, it could resolve one of the more intractable secondary waste management challenges in current PFAS remediation practice.

Australian context: PFAS NEMP 3.0, state frameworks, and the shift towards on-site destruction

Australia’s PFAS National Environmental Management Plan 3.0, published in March 2025, sets the current national framework for managing PFAS-contaminated sites. PFAS NEMP 3.0 introduces updated health-based investigation levels and ecological screening values for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) across soil, groundwater, and surface water matrices. Critically, the framework places explicit constraints on the landfilling of PFAS-impacted waste and actively encourages on-site treatment and destruction where feasible. This policy position creates a direct alignment between the PFAS NEMP 3.0 objectives and the proposition offered by in-situ mineralisation technologies such as REM.

At the state level, jurisdictions including Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland have each developed or are developing their own PFAS guidance and regulatory instruments that sit alongside the national framework. In practice, these state-level frameworks largely reference PFAS NEMP 3.0 investigation levels and screening values as the baseline, while adding jurisdiction-specific requirements around notification, reporting, and remediation validation. For practitioners managing contaminated sites across multiple jurisdictions, the convergence on PFAS NEMP 3.0 as a common reference point simplifies some aspects of compliance, though state-specific obligations remain and must be assessed on a site-by-site basis. The broader regulatory trajectory — tightening investigation levels, constrained landfill pathways, and growing scrutiny of pump-and-treat as a long-term strategy — reinforces the commercial logic behind in-situ destruction technologies such as REM.

References and related sources

• Primary source: smallcaps.com.au
• stocksdownunder.com
• tradingview.com
• smallcaps.com.au
• pjra.com.au
• PFAS National Environmental Management Plan (NEMP)

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This is an iEnvi Machete news summary. Prepared by iEnvi to summarise the source article for contaminated land, groundwater, remediation, approvals and site risk professionals.

Published: 15 Jun 2026

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