PFAS: Séché Environnement Validates Its Incinerators and Tests Electro-Oxidation
In an interview published on November 5, 2026, Marc Henry, director of the group's research and development center in Saint-Vulbas (Ain), described a two-stage approach. The group first verified the destruction of these molecules in its own incinerators. It is now developing processes for polluted water and soils.
After Validating the Incinerators, Processes for Water and Soils
The group began by verifying its own facilities before opening these channels to its customers. The methodology used is validated by the United Nations Development Programme: a known molecule is injected into a furnace operating under normal conditions, then tracked in the flue gases, water and bottom ash in order to calculate a thermal destruction rate.
With a rate of 99.99%, Séché Environnement states that it has validated the reliability of all its hazardous waste incineration facilities. The group also indicates that it has adapted to the evolution of stack analysis techniques, which now make it possible to detect very small PFAS.
For water, the first step is to concentrate the pollution in order to reduce the volumes to be treated, and therefore the costs. A CIFRE thesis conducted with the M2P2 laboratory of Aix-Marseille University made it possible to test nanofiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, and then to compare several processes for destroying the concentrate.
Ozonation and sonolysis "did not prove satisfactory", while electro-oxidation achieved the best results. Tested with a university team from Toulouse, this process achieved removal efficiencies of approximately 98% on clean waters spiked with PFAS, including TFA, which is presented as one of the most difficult to destroy.
A balance of fluorine and carbon, the basic constituents of PFAS, aims to rule out the possibility of recombination into other molecules of the same family. The group is now seeking to optimize this process in order to offer competitive solutions.
For soils, several avenues are being explored: washing, which transfers PFAS into water, and clay-based reagents designed to trap them within the soil matrix. Thermal desorption is presented as the most advanced avenue: in the laboratory, heating soils to about 400 °C made it possible to extract the PFAS.
A new CIFRE thesis has just begun to improve this process by modeling heat exchanges within masses of polluted soil. It also addresses the possibility of replacing natural gas with electricity as an energy source in order to reduce the carbon footprint.
An Enhanced Mobile Unit and an Evolving Regulatory Framework
The group presents itself as a process integrator. It recently partnered with a Lyon-based start-up specializing in electro-oxidation to complement its mobile pilot unit "Reuse and PFAS", a transportable container made available to the customers of STEI, its industrial water treatment subsidiary.
This container brings together the technologies available to determine the treatment suited to each type of water. For start-ups, the advantage put forward is demonstrating that their technology works in the field, on real hazardous waste sources.
On the regulatory front, Marc Henry notes that prefectoral orders for industrial facilities often do not set specific limits, but that the regulations are evolving rapidly: an obligation to measure certain PFAS in aqueous discharges, then in atmospheric emissions, and provisions specific to facilities treating liquid waste that may contain them.
"We do not know today how the thresholds or the molecules concerned will evolve," he said. The group states that it is already developing technologies that are "high-performing, scientifically validated and economically viable" for industrial companies, local authorities and managers of polluted sites that will need to comply with the new standards.
