At a time when PFAS regulations, water quality concerns, and environmental accountability are converging, Arq stands out as a rare example of innovation, vertical integration and purpose-built sustainability in the U.S. activated carbon market. Arq is transforming granular activated carbon (GAC) manufacturing and supply in America, with positive implications for utilities, municipalities, and A&E contractors alike.
What makes Arq’s approach to GAC production different from traditional suppliers?
Arq is one of only three coal-based U.S. GAC manufacturers. All others are suppliers that ship GAC from overseas and are far more vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, price volatility, tariffs and other import factors. Furthermore, most of these suppliers are actually resellers, not manufacturers, making them even more exposed to these threats.
Arq is the only vertically integrated GAC supplier in North America. Using a patented process, Arq produces 100% of its GAC in Louisiana from bituminous coal fines feedstock that is recovered from a former steel mill in Kentucky. This vertical integration gives Arq complete control over its entire product chain to ensure reliability and quality.
How does Arq ensure quality and consistency across the entire GAC production process?
Arq has strict internal quality control processes and testing protocols, continually subjecting their GAC products to testing and monitoring of GAC surfaces, pores, particles, and performance. As Arq has full control over their feedstock, the company has a major competitive advantage regarding consistency, with very little variability in the primary product input.
What quality standards should buyers look for when evaluating GAC?
To minimize operational and capital costs, risk of premature breakthrough, and supply disruption, buyers should choose GAC based on capacity, adsorption rate and purity.
High-capacity GAC can treat more water with the same amount of media, which minimizes media change-outs and consequential costs such as media disposal and/or reactivation. A better adsorption rate means that water can be treated faster, which has implications on purchasing decisions for equipment, as GAC with better adsorption characteristics potentially can be used with smaller – and therefore less expensive – vessels. Purity of product reflects the contaminants the GAC itself could introduce into the water. Arsenic is typically found in GAC made from bituminous coal, and Arq’s GAC feedstock is pre-washed to reduce GAC-leachable arsenic concentrations so that end users can use less time and water during startup.
Unfortunately, at present there are limited standard measurements for GAC capacity, adsorption rate and purity. Instead, these characteristics should be tested using a Rapid Small Scale Column Test (RSSCT) or a full-scale pilot installation, in which multiple GAC products can be compared. The added benefit of product testing include the opportunity to expose the GAC alternatives to actual water quality and actual equipment, which is a good indicator of GAC performance in a commercial deployment.
Where are you seeing the most urgent demand for GAC right now?
Due to legally enforceable EPA maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) that went into effect in 2024 for PFAS, the market for potable water treatment by municipal water systems is expected to more than triple by 2029. This growth will take the current U.S. market from approximately 170 million pounds per year of GAC to between 500 and 700 million pounds per year. With a potential shortage on the horizon, utilities are urgently seeking supply agreements from reliable sources.
What questions should GAC buyers be asking their suppliers, but often don’t?
While standard industry metrics do not yet exist for capacity, adsorption rate or purity, buyers should ask prospective suppliers about how their products fare along these attributes. For actual proof, however, purchasers should conduct, at the very least, a rapid small scale column test (RSSCT) of all GAC products under consideration, to see how they perform using sample water from their operations. Buyers also should ask a producer about supply reliability. As GAC demand spikes, this will become an increasingly important issue as thousands of drinking water plants upgrade their treatment systems to comply with PFAS regulations by 2029.
What does vertical integration really mean for GAC buyers?
Vertical integration in the GAC market is exceptionally valuable, especially with a high quality, domestically manufactured GAC. By controlling the product from feedstock to finished product, Arq’s GAC is highly consistent from batch to batch, offering a reliable supply and stable pricing unaffected by tariffs or other import factors. Located 100% in the U.S., the company supports faster customer response time and has complete visibility on its entire product chain at all times.
How does Arq’s GAC manufacturing process turn environmental liabilities into high-performance products?
Arq’s GAC starts with an ample supply of recovered coal fines from a former industrial coal washing facility in Appalachia. By transforming coal fines into a high-performance carbon product, Arq is creating a water pollution mitigation product while simultaneously reducing environmental liability in Kentucky through the removal of waste coal fines from a former steel mill. This high value product has a lower carbon footprint than coal that is freshly mined or shipped from overseas.
The activated carbon production process in Louisiana generates net positive energy with a closed loop system that uses heat to generate energy that can be used by the plant for steam or energy or exported to the grid.
The enhanced performance of the resulting activated carbon leads to lower dosage requirements, which reduces the environmental impact and costs to end users through less media waste and reduced water use.
What performance attributes set Arq GAC apart in water treatment applications?
Arq’s GAC products offer outstanding performance owing to high capacity, fast adsorption and greater purity. High capacity and fast adsorption are the outcomes of a patented manufacturing process that maximizes surface area, pore distribution, and transport pore volume. Product purity is a result of a rinsing procedure built into the coal fine recovery process, which results in GAC that is much lower in arsenic than other GAC made from bituminous coal, saving end users time, water and resources during startup.
How does Arq’s GAC support regulatory compliance, especially with PFAS rules tightening?
PFAS regulations require drinking water facilities to achieve MCLs of 4 parts per trillion (ppt) for two common PFAS – PFOA and PFOS – by 2031. Arq products demonstrate the ability to achieve PFAS removal to these MCLs across dozens of test and pilot installations in 24 states, in water containing PFAS concentrations ranging from 3 to 4,500 ppt. Results show that Arq’s GAC can treat PFAS in up to 3.4 times more water before breakthrough than can the industry standard.
What role does sustainability play in GAC procurement decisions? And how does Arq help?
At its core, increasing sustainability is a result of cutting waste and reducing the use of resources – both of which always deliver economic benefits as well. Arq’s GAC products help customers increase sustainability in a number of ways.
First, Arq’s high quality GAC lasts longer and removes more contaminants than low quality GACs, which reduces media changeouts. This, in turn, reduces the need to purchase and store media, the need to dispose of media, the related transportation of both new and spent media and the environmental effects of media disposal. Second, the quality of Arq’s GAC results in reduced water use, because the product arrives with far less arsenic needing back-washing. Finally, with 100% of GAC operations located in the U.S., Arq’s carbon impact from product transportation is much lower than by suppliers with overseas sources or operations.
What is Arq’s approach to working with customers?
In addition to providing a high-quality product, Arq works with customers as a collaborating partner rather than just a transactional supplier. With expert knowledge, relevant experience, exceptional engineering talent, and a strong commitment to research and development, Arq enthusiastically performs water testing, water quality analysis and site analysis to be sure that the right GAC is specified according to specific flow volume, target contaminants, and time and/or space constraints. More than a supplier, Arq is a valued partner that helps customers achieve performance goals, control costs, and ensure a reliable supply of GAC.
What are the advantages of locking in a domestic GAC supply now?
As the rush to secure sources of granular activated carbon ramps up ahead of the 2031 EPA deadline to comply with PFAS MCLs, drinking water utilities should not delay in securing a supply agreement. There are great advantages in choosing a high-quality, domestic source of GAC, chief among them locking in a reliable supply that is resistant to supply chain disruption and price volatility and immune to tariffs and other import factors. Arq’s ample supply of bituminous coal fines gives the company a very strong position in the market to deliver GAC products for decades to come, even given the approaching demand.
Securing Arq as a partner gives GAC buyers a trusted relationship with a vertically integrated GAC manufacturer that has total control over the process from feedstock to finished product, and who won’t shift responsibility up or down the supply chain.
