… (Bruce) Rittmann leads the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology in ASU’s Biodesign Institute. For more than 20 years at ASU, Rittmann has been creating and refining a technology that uses microbes like bacteria to remove harmful substances from water. The technology is called membrane biofilm reactor, or MBfR. … His team developed the membrane catalyst-film reactor, or MCfR, to support the bacteria in the MBfR. The MCfR uses a metal called palladium to break the fluorine bonds in the chain. This step allows the microbes to finish the job of turning harmful PFAS into its harmless components. Rittmann says the combined MBfR and MCfR system works on the top six PFAS chemicals targeted by the EPA in drinking water. It can also work on others that are of concern to environmental and human health.