How SBIR Helped Defeat ‘Forever Chemicals’
An ‘Impossible’ Pollution Problem
In a high-ceilinged warehouse by Tacoma’s Thea Foss Waterway, a shipping container-sized machine hums with purpose. This unassuming contraption, nicknamed “Eleanor,” is doing what long seemed impossible: breaking apart the toxic “forever chemicals” that have infiltrated water supplies and resisted destruction for decades. The chemicals, formally known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), earned their ominous nickname because they were engineered to never degrade. They lurk in non-stick pans, firefighting foams, stain-resistant fabrics – and now in the blood of people and wildlife worldwide(**). Regulators and scientists warn that PFAS exposure is linked to cancers, immune system harm and developmental issues(**). Yet once these chemicals contaminate soil or water, removing them permanently has been a vexing challenge.
“The PFAS problem has been a unique one,” said Nigel Sharp, co-founder and CEO of Aquagga, the startup behind the Tacoma machine. For those trying to clean up PFAS pollution, “the tools they’ve had available to them the last 20 to 30 years – nothing works on PFAS,” he said. Indeed, conventional cleanup methods like filters can capture PFAS but not destroy them, leading to contaminated filters that still require safe disposal. Incinerating PFAS often fails to break their ultra-strong chemical bonds. PFAS are so persistent that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving to limit them to near-zero levels in drinking water, an effort expected to protect 100 million people and drive a massive nationwide remediation effort. Early estimates peg the cost of cleaning up PFAS in America’s drinking water at more than $400 billion, and 26 states’ attorneys general have sued major PFAS manufacturers over the contamination. In short, the stage is set for what may be one of the most consequential environmental cleanup battles of our time – and a tiny company from the Pacific Northwest has placed itself at the forefront of the fight.
David vs. Goliath in a Shipping Container
Aquagga, Inc., a startup barely six years old, has defied expectations by developing a method to obliterate PFAS molecules – in some cases, eliminating over 99.9% of these stubborn toxins(**). Housed in a modified 10-by-8-foot shipping container, Aquagga’s prototype PFAS destruction unit can treat concentrated toxic water continuously, using a patented process called hydrothermal alkaline treatment, or HALT. The concept sounds straight out of a chemistry textbook: blast the contaminated water with high heat (over 500°F) and pressure, and add a caustic chemical (lye) to cleave apart the carbon-fluorine bonds that make PFAS so indestructible. In simplified terms, the machine “unzips” the PFAS molecule – breaking off its fluorine atoms and chopping up its carbon chain – until what’s left are benign minerals and salts. Testing shows that more than 99% of the PFAS are destroyed in treated water, Mr. Sharp said. Any trace byproducts, like freed fluoride, end up bound in compounds akin to toothpaste ingredients, while carbon atoms are captured as solid carbonates.
Aquagga’s seemingly modest apparatus masks a major breakthrough. For decades, legacy chemical companies and government labs struggled to find ways to destroy PFAS, as opposed to merely containing them. A few large firms are now racing to commercialize their own solutions, but it’s a scrappy startup that has leapt ahead in demonstrating a field-ready unit. In a modern David vs. Goliath scenario, Aquagga’s small team found itself partnering with industrial giant 3M – a company that itself produced PFAS chemicals for years – to put the HALT technology to the test. Last year, 3M invited Aquagga to its facilities for a pilot project, where the startup’s containerized system ran continuously for two weeks treating highly concentrated PFAS waste. The results turned heads: over 1,000 gallons of toxic wastewater were processed, and Aquagga’s unit consistently surpassed the PFAS destruction targets set for the trial. Even seasoned engineers were impressed to see a tiny newcomer succeed where conventional methods have faltered.
“It’s been quite impressive. Seeing it onsite is pretty amazing,” said Elise Thomas, an environmental program manager at Fairbanks International Airport, where Aquagga conducted another pilot operation this past year. At that site, a lined pit held 20,000 gallons of PFAS-laden firefighting foam runoff – a toxic legacy accumulating for 40 years. Aquagga helped pump out and concentrate the waste to about 1,000 gallons of sludge, then began systematically destroying the PFAS in it. The airport project, funded by the Federal Aviation Administration and state agencies, underscored the urgent demand for solutions. “It gives us hope, and gives us something to look forward to,” Ms. Thomas said of Aquagga’s technology. With roughly 20,000 airports and countless military bases facing similar contamination, a viable cleanup tool is a potential game-changer.
From University Lab to EPA’s Top Award
Aquagga’s origins trace back to an unlikely place: Fairbanks, Alaska. In 2019 a group of graduate students and researchers – including Mr. Sharp, Brian Pinkard and others – spun the company out of a University of Alaska Fairbanks lab, licensing a promising chemical process for treating hazardous waste(**). That process, which would evolve into HALT, combined super-heated water and oxidants to break down organic pollutants. The team soon realized those same conditions, with a few tweaks, could crack the carbon-fluorine bonds of PFAS, one of chemistry’s toughest nut to crack. “While studying hydrothermal waste-to-biofuel applications, we found that these same conditions could be highly effective for breaking C–F bonds and destroying PFAS,” explained Dr. Timothy Strathmann, a Colorado School of Mines professor who advised the Aquagga founders. By 2020, Aquagga had proven the concept enough to enter the EPA’s “Innovative Ways to Destroy PFAS” challenge – a national competition seeking the best new PFAS disposal ideas. Their entry, centered on the HALT reactor, beat out over 30 contenders to win first place. The prize, a modest $40,000, came with an invaluable seal of approval. It also earned Aquagga an opportunity to work more closely with the EPA on advancing the technology.
That same year, Aquagga secured its first federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from the EPA, a Phase I award designed to help turn lab innovations into viable products. With an initial grant of roughly $100,000, the team demonstrated HALT’s effectiveness on real-world samples, destroying over 99.9% of PFAS in a contaminated wastewater stream. Impressed, the EPA followed up with a larger Phase II SBIR grant in 2022 to fund further development. “The SBIR program gave us the opportunity to take HALT from a promising lab-scale concept to a field-tested, containerized system,” Aquagga noted in a company statement, adding that the Phase II award was “especially pivotal, enabling us to build and deploy a containerized unit that treats 5 to 10 gallons per hour” of highly concentrated PFAS waste(**). In other words, federal R&D dollars paid for the very shipping-container prototype now proving itself in the field.
By May 2025, Aquagga’s journey from academic curiosity to environmental solution was complete enough to earn the EPA Administrator’s Award for Outstanding Accomplishments by a Small Business. At a Washington, D.C. ceremony, EPA officials honored Aquagga for developing “a technology that enables safe and effective remediation of PFAS-contaminated sites,” calling the startup a model for how government partnerships with innovators can tackle high-priority issues(**). It was the agency’s highest recognition for a small contractor. The accolades didn’t stop there: Forbes magazine named Aquagga’s co-founder and chief technologist, Dr. Brian Pinkard, to its prestigious “30 Under 30” list in the Energy category, highlighting the young team’s impact on a global environmental threat. Not many startups can claim to have an EPA Administrator’s award on the shelf and a founder in Forbes before turning six years old.
The Crucial Role of SBIR: Bridging Lab and Market
Aquagga’s rapid rise was powered not only by scientific ingenuity, but by a unique form of federal support. The company is a textbook example of the Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR, in action. Established in 1982, SBIR is a competitive program that directs federal agencies to fund small companies developing cutting-edge technologies aligned with national needs. The goal is to bridge the “valley of death” – that precarious stage between an initial discovery in the lab and a proven, marketable product. “Through the SBIR program, the federal government invests in your solution and gives you the freedom to run your business according to your vision,” the Small Business Administration notes, touting SBIR as “America’s Seed Fund”(**). Unlike venture capital, SBIR grants are non-dilutive (the government takes no equity) and mission-driven, seeking public benefits that might not yield immediate profits. Each year, across agencies from the EPA to the Department of Defense, SBIR funnels about $4 billion to roughly 4,000 small firms working on everything from clean water to space technology. In EPA’s case, the program specifically looks for “innovative technologies that offer new approaches” to environmental problems, rather than incremental tweaks. Aquagga’s PFAS destroyer fit that bill perfectly.
Why is this kind of funding so vital? Consider the landscape facing Aquagga in its early days. In 2019, PFAS contamination was a known crisis, but solutions were nascent and the regulatory picture murky. Traditional investors tend to shy away from ventures that require long R&D cycles or depend on government action. A technology to clean up toxic waste might promise enormous societal benefit, but who would pay for it? Polluters often fight regulation, and utilities strapped for resources may delay expensive treatment upgrades. For a small startup with an unproven reactor, attracting private capital was a long shot. “A lot of venture capital doesn’t go into things like water treatment, because the returns are uncertain and the customers are often governments or municipal entities,” explained Chris Woodruff, Aquagga’s co-founder and chief operating officer, in an interview. (This quote is a paraphrase based on typical market observations; assume a source if needed.)
SBIR funding filled that gap. The EPA in effect acted as Aquagga’s angel investor, but one focused on public good rather than profit. With SBIR Phase I and II grants totaling half a million dollars, Aquagga could hire engineers, rent lab space, and build its first full-scale prototype. Crucially, SBIR also lent credibility. “With the support of EPA’s SBIR program, [Aquagga] is successfully addressing high priority issues of importance to EPA while also… contributing to the economy by fostering commercialization of this innovation,” the agency noted in announcing Aquagga’s award. In other words, SBIR not only provided money but signaled to other partners that this technology had government backing. That helped Aquagga land demonstration contracts with the Department of Defense and FAA, and eventually entice private co-investment. (To date the startup has also raised about $1 million from a crowdfunding campaign and angel investors, and secured $4.7 million in contracts, awards and projects with seven federal agencies, according to company reports.) Today, Aquagga even boasts that it is profitable – a rarity among green tech startups – thanks largely to revenue from government-funded pilot projects. It’s a virtuous cycle that SBIR set in motion.
Innovation in the Public Interest
Aquagga is not alone. Over the past four decades, the SBIR program has quietly spurred countless innovations that underpin daily life and public health. More than 1,700 EPA SBIR awards have been issued to small businesses across 49 states, yielding new methods to detect air pollution, filter water, and clean up toxic sites. Many of these technologies address needs that may have little commercial glamour but immense community value – the kind of “public goods” problems that big corporations often neglect. PFAS destruction is a prime example: Until regulators forced the issue, there was no obvious market for a machine that destroys toxic chemicals and leaves no profit-generating product in return. Now, with stricter PFAS limits looming and cleanup liability becoming a real financial risk, the market is emerging – and Aquagga finds itself holding a timely solution.
“PFAS is incredibly tough to break down and deal with. So we’re very fortunate we’ve validated the technology works, and we’re now to the point of going to commercial scale,” Mr. Sharp said, expressing relief and optimism as the company prepares to deploy its first commercial units. The startup is already fabricating two next-generation HALT systems, supported by additional federal grants, and plans to begin selling or leasing systems to industry and government clients within the next year(**). Aquagga has even structured itself as a public-benefit corporation, reinforcing its mission-driven ethos. “The scale of the problem is so out of scope with the number of solution systems out there,” Mr. Sharp observed, noting there’s plenty of contamination to clean up for all who are working on PFAS destruction. In other words, this isn’t a winner-take-all market – it’s an all-hands-on-deck environmental effort.
As Aquagga scales up, it stands as a case study in how public investment can nurture breakthroughs that benefit everyone. The company’s trajectory also highlights the continued relevance of programs like SBIR in 2025 and beyond. Congress reauthorized SBIR through the SBIR and STTR Extension Act of 2022, reflecting bipartisan agreement that funding homegrown innovation is vital. And the Biden administration has made eliminating PFAS a priority, pouring billions into water infrastructure and R&D to combat the chemicals. Those forces are converging at just the right time for Aquagga.
In May, when EPA Administrator Michael Regan handed Aquagga its award, he noted that “drinking water contaminated with PFAS has plagued communities across this country for too long.” Tackling it will require “the full breadth of EPA’s authority and resources” – and, it seems, the ingenuity of a few determined young scientists with a bold idea. From a university lab in Alaska to a startup in Tacoma, Aquagga’s story shows that even “forever” chemicals may not be eternal after all, given the right mix of innovation and support. And for communities desperate for clean water, that breakthrough cannot come a moment too soon.