A Foam Fix for Sewage's Dirtiest Secret

EPOC Enviro's foam tech removes over 97% of PFAS from sewage, arriving just as Europe races to meet binding water safety limits

13 May 2026

For decades, wastewater treatment plants have functioned less as barriers to chemical contamination than as conduits for it, releasing effluent still laden with PFAS into waterways and spreading chemical-laced biosolids across agricultural land. That structural failure, long treated as an engineering inevitability, now has a credible technical challenger.

On May 11, EPOC Enviro announced full-scale trial results for its Surface-Active Foam Fractionation technology, known as SAFF, at an undisclosed Australian wastewater facility. Bench-scale testing showed removal of more than 97 percent of total PFAS from sewage's liquid phase, with certain shorter-chain compounds reaching 99 percent removal or above and biosolids-phase reduction exceeding 80 percent. The system intercepts PFAS at multiple treatment stages rather than at a single point of intervention, a design that company officials said reflects the chemical's dispersal throughout the treatment process.

The technology exploits a well-established surface chemistry principle. PFAS molecules, which are attracted to interfaces between air and water, attach to rising bubbles within the fractionation unit, concentrate as a removable foam layer, and are extracted without thermal destruction or heavy chemical input. Peter Murphy, the company's managing director, described the result as a correction to a longstanding industry assumption that sewage contamination arrives too dilute and too diffuse to intercept efficiently at scale.

However, the timing carries particular weight in Europe. Since January 2026, binding limits under the European Union's Drinking Water Directive have required member states to hold concentrations of 20 specific PFAS compounds below 0.10 micrograms per liter. Projected compliance investment across European utilities is estimated to reach 3.6 billion euros through 2036, according to company statements. Yet early procurement has concentrated almost entirely on drinking water infrastructure, leaving sewage treatment largely unaddressed by validated technology.

EPOC Enviro has operated SAFF systems across more than 60 sites on four continents since 2018, primarily in landfill leachate and industrial wastewater applications. Sewage represents a newer and strategically significant frontier. With European expansion now underway through distribution partners, full trial data expected in the coming months, and regulatory deadlines already in force, the results could shape remediation policy and procurement strategy for years ahead.