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6K's Aaron Bent and Saurabh Ullal

‘Forever chemicals,’ or PFAS, are everywhere. With the Environmental Protection Agency setting national limits for forever chemicals in drinking water for the first time this past April, the big question is how to get rid of them.

6K, which has developed an advanced microwave-based plasma process to produce advanced materials that it calls UniMelt with $352 million in venture funding and an additional $134 million in government monies, figures its technology is the answer. The North Andover, Mass.-based startup has been developing the PFAS-fighting use for its technology in stealth for roughly a year, and its existence has not previously been reported.

“We are really good at creating things – we can build battery materials and 3D-printing materials – but we are also good at destruction or remediation, and that’s what this is all about,” Aaron Bent, who was 6K’s CEO during the development and is now an advisor to the company, told Forbes.

The company said it discovered that the extreme heat of 6,000 degrees (thus the company’s name), plus reactive radicals from the microwave and UV light emitted by the plasma, could indeed zap the forever chemicals – in just two seconds.

In August, Saurabh Ullal, who had been 6K’s chief operating officer since 2017 and holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UC Santa Barbara, took over as CEO. “There are different segments of the market we can impact in terms of PFAS destruction,” he said. “It really comes down to which one do we prioritize and go ahead with.”

The company sees potential in cleaning water, particularly combining its technology with the granular activated carbon that is currently used for that purpose but itself becomes contaminated by the toxic chemicals. It could also be used to clean up firefighting foam that’s a huge problem on military sites and airports........

© Forbes