Meet the aerospace engineer-turned-environment advocate on a quest to rid the world of artificial contaminants.
The original ‘forever chemical’, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – first synthesised in the 1880s – was once considered a revolutionary organochlorine compound.
Following commercial production in 1929, PCBs enabled the development of the power grid through use of transformer oils to thermally insulate capacitors and transformers.
Because the thermal properties of the chemical were so robust, it was also used in paints, caulking materials and grease as part of pumping and mechanical systems.
But several decades later, the chemical was notoriously known for a different property – carcinogenicity – with the United States Environmental Protection Agency banning PCBs in 1979 and the World Health Organization following suit in 1980.
Despite the passage of 40 years, PCBs are a “legacy issue” continuing to plague the planet, according to Sergie Albino, CEO and Founder of venture capital-backed clean tech company ecoSPEARS.
Albino recently visited Australia to speak at a workshop discussing approaches for the identification, assessment and remediation of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), hosted by crcCARE Australia.
“We really don’t know the gravity of [artificial] chemicals,” he told create.
“While initially designed to improve life and mankind, sometimes we learn much later on that they are actually more harmful for us.”
Here’s how this former NASA engineer has since made it his mission to cleanse the world’s waterways, taking the ‘forever’ out of forever chemicals.
Harnessing the power of NASA technology
As a budding aerospace engineer at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Albino was brought in to work on space flight payload hardware for life sciences experiments in space.
“The goal was … to understand how humans can live in space as a long-term habitat,” he explained.
There, Albino benefited from rubbing shoulders with the best in the field, including renowned environmental scientist and engineer Dr Jacqueline Quinn.
After leaving NASA in 2012 after the last shuttle program retired, he pursued the American dream of entrepreneurship, supporting a program to commercialise NASA technologies with his alma mater, Rollins College.
A few years later, Quinn invented one of the technologies he reviewed through the program, one originally developed to solve NASA’s contamination challenges.
“NASA, along with other industrial and Department of Defense facilities, had buildings painted with PCB-coated paints, with the transformer oils used also containing PCBs,” Albino said.
Quinn first developed a technology that would chemically destroy PCBs without burning them. After discovering its presence in sediments, she also developed a spike-shaped polymer tube called SPEARS (Sorbent Polymer Extraction and Remediation System) to absorb the chemicals from porewater and the sediment environment.
“She started looking into how to remove PCBs from a sediment environment so it doesn’t become a contaminant that goes into our food web,” Albino explained.
This is where Albino’s much-needed design expertise came into play, ensuring the product could be developed at high volume and low cost.
“In 2014, Quinn called me up and said, ‘I have this US Navy grant. We designed these plastic spears, but it’s going to cost too much money to scale up’,” he said.
“So I redesigned the SPEARS for manufacturing so it could be adopted onsite to extract PCB from the sediment environment.”
The redesigned SPEARS removes contamination from porewater and sediments by absorbing them like a sponge using Albino’s hidden design methodology: biomimicry.
“If mother nature has done it, I know it should work pretty well,” Quinn said.
The SPEARS can be looked at like mangroves, using water to mobilise and absorb pollutants, while also preventing erosion of contaminated sediment layers from further flowing downstream.
“Once pressed in place, the SPEARS is left there as part of an adaptive management and enhanced natural recovery program to absorb chemical contamination so [it doesn’t] get into fish,” Albino explained.
Expanding into PFAS removal
Along with PCB extraction, ecoSPEARS has also focused on the removal of dioxins, PAHs, DDT and other persistent toxins from contaminated sediment through the SPEARS technology among other remediation methods.
These include ecoĀINA, an ex-situ soil washing remediation technology and ecoCUBE, an industrial wastewater and groundwater remediation technology that degrades and mineralises toxins.
While initially avoiding PFAS remediation due to lack of regulations, ecoSPEARS recently branched out into removal of the chemical, with Albino often following Australian standards from the US.
Australia has somewhat led the charge in terms of PFAS remediation, including setting national standards for PFAS levels in drinking water and soil.
The government has also committed to banning the import, use and manufacture of prominent PFAS types perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS) from 1 July 2025.
“PFAS is a very heavy focus in Australia, which is why I’m here to help bring more awareness and technology support from the States,” Albino said.
Similarly to PCB, PFAS was much lauded until classed as the newest forever chemical.
“Not too long ago, we thought Teflon pans and water-repellent clothing were fantastic, and AFFF firefighting foam could save a lot of lives because it could suppress fire so quickly,” said Albino.
Linked to cancer and reproductive, immune system and developmental problems, PFAS is found in air, water, soil fish and even breast milk.
Local industries and locations that are likely have high levels of PFAS include military bases, airports and fire training centres – anywhere that has at one point had fire training, or fire suppression utilising AFFF.
“If there [are] manufacturing groups here that have licensed the PFAS technology and incorporated it into their processes, effluent from their manufacturing plant will also contain PFAS,” Albino said.
So far, the SPEARS technology has been used to remove contaminants as far west in the Pacific as Guam, and also in a pilot study with the Port of San Diego, California; in Anacostia River, Washington D.C.; and in Sweden.
“We’re also about to do more deployments with SPEARS in the Southwest Pacific Islands and in the Hudson River this year,” Albino said.
So far, the results around PCB removal have been “fantastic”.
“We’ve been able to absorb and sequester the most bioavailable contamination from the porewater before it’s absorbed into fish, further contaminating human health.”
On the PFAS side, SPEARS has been deployed in firefighting training pits, with the company collecting early data of efficacy.
“It has shown us that SPEARS [is] absorbing PFAS, primarily attributed to firefighting foams, which is a good sign,” he said.
In a change of pace from his NASA days, Albino has his feet firmly on earth.
“Most folks who work in the space industry are more focused on finding new life and new planets,” he said. “I want to preserve this blue planet as much as I can.”
Preserving the earth is key to a sustainable future. Be part of the nationwide World Engineering Day celebration, spotlighting innovative approaches to sustainability within engineering.