MDI Bio Lab and Partners Win $50k to Develop PFAS Filters for Coastal Waters

Press Release

MDI Bio Lab and Partners Win $50k to Develop PFAS Filters for Coastal Waters

Project aims to stem a flow of "forever chemicals" into Acadia National Park's ecosystems

Bar Harbor, Maine - MDI Biological Laboratory Associate Professor Jane Disney, Ph.D., and partners at Northern Tilth, Maine Laboratories, College of the Atlantic and Northeastern's Roux Institute were awarded $50,000 in the Life Sciences Impact Forum held at the Institute earlier this fall.

Together they will develop "Biochar Bags" to reduce or prevent the spread of harmful PFAS chemicals from point sources to near-shore waters. After gaining regulatory approval, their experiments will start with a culvert in Acadia National Park, near Somes Sound, where PFAS has been detected.

Disney leads the Community Environmental Health Laboratory, which in 2023 traced an apparent connection between PFAS-contaminated groundwater at MDI High School and neighboring residential well water supplies.

Disney and her team worked to help affected residents respond. When later work documented a downstream culvert pipe spilling contaminated water into the Sound, as well as elevated PFAS levels in tidal mud flats, clams and crabs, Disney knew she wanted to do more.

"It was disquieting, if not discouraging, to find that PFAS wasn't just restricted to groundwater and was making its way down to the coastal environments, particularly Somes Sound," she said. "We wanted to see if there was a way to cut it off at the pass."

Disney and the new team will design, deploy and test innovative designs of Biochar Bags to filter water and capture PFAS at the Somes Sound culvert. If successful, the technology could offer a low-cost, scalable commercial product for PFAS mitigation.

Disney says that stemming the tide of PFAS from land-based sources into high-yield shellfish harvesting areas or licensed aquaculture sites could allow for marketing as "harvested from a PFAS-protected area".

Over the past several years, Disney and other Mainers have been joining forces as they develop particular expertise in the field of PFAS research. They include Katie Richards, founder and CEO of Maine Laboratories, the state's first PFAS testing facility, and Andrew Carpenter, a soil scientist and owner of the Northern Tilth organic waste recycling company, who is developing PFAS solutions for agricultural sites using a charcoal-like filtering substance made from organic matter, called biochar.

In September, they all attended the Roux's third annual Life Sciences Impact Forum, where they formed a team to respond to a competitive Request for Proposals announced at the forum, and the Biochar Bag project was born. They have since been joined by Sarah Hall, a geologist at the College of the Atlantic, and MDI Bio Lab Research Associate Richard Hilliard, Ph.D., who will help with assessing flow rates and PFAS loads in the study area.

"We are thrilled to support Dr. Disney and her team," said Aileen Huang-Saad, Director of Life Sciences, Health, & Engineering Programs at the Roux Institute. "They embody what we are trying to achieve with the Impact Forum - how can we support scientists across the state in developing cross-institutional collaborations that have the potential of addressing challenges we are facing in Maine."

Prototype Biochar Bags could be deployed in the field in early 2026.