Patrick McKeown

Business Development Manager, ECT2

Providing best in class solutions for PFAS in drinking water and groundwater across the globe.

Growing up in Maine I was raised with a great appreciation for the environment and clean water we are so lucky to have in New England. On family camping trips, I was taught “always leave the site cleaner than you found it”, and have stuck to that mantra with my career.

After getting my degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maine, I worked for CDM Smith in CT on a range of projects in the wastewater, storm water and drinking water field.

I moved back to Maine to work for ECT2 as a project engineer, helping to design, build and operate our state of the art treatment systems. Currently, my focus is on the growth and development of our PFAS drinking water and remediation technology.

ECT2 is a recognized global leader in the development of engineered solutions for the removal of emerging contaminants, including PFAS, from water and vapor. Using its SORBIX synthetic resin technologies, ECT2’s systems, including its proprietary regenerable resin system, provide up to 20 times higher capacity than granular activated carbon at lower cost and a fraction of the waste volume.

If you are looking for a proven solution for PFAS, we have the experience and the data to back it up.

We can help, contact me for our best in class solution to your PFAS problem.

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Treating PFOS and PFOA at an Airport

PFAS in municipal wastewater has become a concern for many municipalities in the US. As local residents naturally contribute PFAS to the system, focus should be placed on removing the higher PFAS concentration industrial sources from entering the waste stream. This can be accomplished by treatment on site, prior to discharging to the sanitary sewer.

After a hangar release increased the focus on PFAS management at an airport in the Northeast US, the airport looked to install a PFAS treatment system that could handle the challenging deicing fluid and remove PFAS prior to discharging to the sanitary sewer. The deicing fluid is collected in underground storage tanks and surface lagoons prior to discharge. Deicing fluid is difficult to process as the high glycol and biological activity can easily foul conventional systems.

A 20-gpm containerized system was provided to meet the primary project objective of producing treated water with combined PFOS+PFOA concentrations below the 70 ng/l Health Advisory Level (HAL). The compressed schedule resulted in a rapid deployment of the system which started treating water only 4 weeks after receipt of the purchase order. The SORBIX M6 system includes a proprietary pretreatment system to remove incoming particulates, a cartridge filter, and ECT2’s SORBIX PT1 resin for further pretreatment and conditioning. The PFAS removal is accomplished by ECT2’s SORBIX LC4 Ion Exchange (IX) resin in a lead-lag vessel orientation. The entire system sits inside of a 40′ container and can be easily relocated as warranted.

The PFAS remediation system has treated more than 400,000 gallons of deicing fluid having a total influent (24 compounds) PFAS concentration of between 20-250 ng/l. The effluent quality from the SORBIX M6 system has been consistently non-detect for the 6 monitored PFAS compounds, including the short-chain species, readily achieving compliance with the 70 ng/l HAL target.