흔치 않은 사상가: Brian Pinkard는 돌을 뒤집는 것부터 ‘영원한 화학 물질 |||’을 파괴하는 것까지 영향력을 추구합니다. 2025년 여름 워싱턴 Shuksan 산 정상에 있는 Brian Pinkard. (Tyler Gottschalk 사진) 편집자 주: 이 시리즈는 시애틀 지역의 ‘흔치 않은 사상가’ 6인을 소개합니다. 즉, 산업을 변화시키고 세상에 긍정적인 변화를 주도하는 발명가, 과학자, 기술자 및 기업가입니다. 12월 11일 GeekWire Gala에서 그들의 인정을 받게 될 것입니다. Uncommon Thinkers는 Greater Seattle Partners와의 파트너십을 통해 제공됩니다. 기계 공학 학사 학위를 취득한 후 Brian Pinkard는 콜로라도의 로키산맥에서 6개월 동안 “바위 뒤집기”를 했습니다. The rock-flipping was purposeful work: Pinkard was clearing obstructions and building trails for AmeriCorps, spending every night in a tent. “나는 그것을 좋아했습니다. 그것은 훌륭했습니다. 그리고 내가 그렇게 한 이유는 세상을 변화시키는 중요한 일을 하고 싶었기 때문입니다.”라고 그는 말했습니다. 프로그램이 끝났을 때 그는 더 큰 환경 문제에 자신의 영향을 미치도록 영감을 받았습니다. 선을 행하려는 그의 열정과 문제 해결을 위한 엔지니어의 추진력이 결합되어 그는 워싱턴 대학에서 박사 학위를 취득한 후 “영원한 화학 물질”로 알려진 유독성 오염 물질인 PFAS를 파괴하는 스타트업인 Aquagga를 설립하게 되었습니다. Pinkard의 박사 고문이자 UW 기계 공학과 연구 교수인 Igor Novosselov는 “Brian은 자신의 임무에 매우 집중했습니다.”라고 말했습니다. “그는 그냥 가서 많은 논문을 쓰는 전형적인 과학자가 아닙니다. 완벽가이드
흔치 않은 사상가: Brian Pinkard는 돌을 뒤집는 것부터 ‘영원한 화학 물질 |||’을 파괴하는 것까지 영향력을 추구합니다. 2025년 여름 워싱턴 Shuksan 산 정상에 있는 Brian Pinkard. (Tyler Gottschalk 사진) 편집자 주: 이 시리즈는 시애틀 지역의 ‘흔치 않은 사상가’ 6인을 소개합니다. 즉, 산업을 변화시키고 세상에 긍정적인 변화를 주도하는 발명가, 과학자, 기술자 및 기업가입니다. 12월 11일 GeekWire Gala에서 그들의 인정을 받게 될 것입니다. Uncommon Thinkers는 Greater Seattle Partners와의 파트너십을 통해 제공됩니다. 기계 공학 학사 학위를 취득한 후 Brian Pinkard는 콜로라도의 로키산맥에서 6개월 동안 “바위 뒤집기”를 했습니다. The rock-flipping was purposeful work: Pinkard was clearing obstructions and building trails for AmeriCorps, spending every night in a tent. “나는 그것을 좋아했습니다. 그것은 훌륭했습니다. 그리고 내가 그렇게 한 이유는 세상을 변화시키는 중요한 일을 하고 싶었기 때문입니다.”라고 그는 말했습니다. 프로그램이 끝났을 때 그는 더 큰 환경 문제에 자신의 영향을 미치도록 영감을 받았습니다. 선을 행하려는 그의 열정과 문제 해결을 위한 엔지니어의 추진력이 결합되어 그는 워싱턴 대학에서 박사 학위를 취득한 후 “영원한 화학 물질”로 알려진 유독성 오염 물질인 PFAS를 파괴하는 스타트업인 Aquagga를 설립하게 되었습니다. Pinkard의 박사 고문이자 UW 기계 공학과 연구 교수인 Igor Novosselov는 “Brian은 자신의 임무에 매우 집중했습니다.”라고 말했습니다. “그는 그냥 가서 많은 논문을 쓰는 전형적인 과학자가 아닙니다.
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Brian Pinkard on the summit of Washington’s Mount Shuksan in the summer of 2025. (Tyler Gottschalk Photo) Editor’s note: This series profiles six of the Seattle region’s “Uncommon Thinkers”: inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive cha
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Brian Pinkard on the summit of Washington’s Mount Shuksan in the summer of 2025. (Tyler Gottschalk Photo) Editor’s note: This series profiles six of the Seattle region’s “Uncommon Thinkers”: inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the world. They will be recognized Dec. 11 at the GeekWire Gala. Uncommon Thinkers is presented in partnership with Greater Seattle Partners. After earning his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, Brian Pinkard spent six months “flipping rocks,” as he describes it, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The rock-flipping was purposeful work: Pinkard was clearing obstructions and building trails for AmeriCorps, spending every night in a tent. “I loved it. It was great. And the reason I did that is because I wanted to do something that mattered, that made a difference in the world,” he said. When the program ended, he was inspired to direct his impact to a larger environmental challenge. His passion to do good, paired with an engineer’s drive for problem solving, led him to a doctoral degree from the University of Washington and then to launching Aquagga, a startup that’s destroying PFAS — a toxic class of pollutants known as “forever chemicals.” “Brian has been very laser focused on his mission,” said Igor Novosselov, Pinkard’s PhD advisor and research professor at the UW’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “He’s not a typical scientist who would just go and write a bunch of papers.
상세 분석
He’s going after impact where it matters.” But a few steps before PFAS, Pinkard was focused on nerve gas in the Middle East. ‘Nobody knows how to treat this stuff‘ The Aquagga team deployed their PFAS destroying device to Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2023 and were treated to Northern Lights. (Aquagga Photo) When Pinkard joined Novosselov’s lab, it had U.S. Department of Defense funding to develop an in-the-field, mobile strategy for treating barrels of abandoned chemical weapons in the Syrian desert. The previous solution was to truck the barrels to the Mediterranean Sea, load them on a boat and incinerate the material. “If you’re the guy who’s got to transport a nerve agent,” Pinkard noted, “it’s not a very good job.” Within five years, the lab came up with a workable solution, but the need was no longer urgent and DoD shelved its application of the technology, though Novosselov continued to work on it. RELATED: ‘Forever chemicals’ are eternal no more thanks to a pollution destroying device from Tacoma startup Pinkard appreciated the tremendous power of the strategy for treating dangerous materials and wondered if there was another use case. Then as he was preparing to finish his PhD in June 2020, the COVID pandemic hit, derailing his plans to apply for a university postdoctoral fellowship as no one was hiring. So he made a pivot to entrepreneurship — a role he had never considered. Pinkard teamed up with engineer and tech innovator Nigel Sharp to explore the potential for using the tech, called supercritical water oxidation, to treat sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants, but they realized the market wasn’t viable. There was, however, buzz about PFAS. “Everybody was talking about PFAS,” he said, and if anyone could figure out how to destroy the chemicals, it would be a breakthrough. That realization became his lightbulb moment.
정리
Destroying PFAS Brian Pinkard at an Aquagga deployment. (Aquagga Photo) PFAS is a family of chemicals that for decades have been added to firefighting foams, food packaging, carpets and fabrics, water-repellent clothing and non-stick pans. The resilient chemicals are great at deflecting water, stains and grease — but they escape from products and now contaminate drinking water across the nation and are even in mothers’ breast milk. PFAS are still in use, while researchers and regulators are increasingly concerned by their serious health impacts. Pinkard and Sharp launched Aquagga in 2019 in Tacoma, Wash., and were soon joined by co-founder Chris Woodruff. The team kept the idea of modular treatment units but shifted to a related but different chemistry (hydrothermal alkaline treatment) for destroying PFAS, securing a patent for the approach from the Colorado School of Mines. “Brian has been a great partner from the beginning,” said Timothy Strathmann, a Colorado School of Mines professor. “Unlike many entrepreneurs I’ve interacted with, he is also deeply interested in understanding the limitations and technical challenges associated with the technology. He’s keenly aware that the long-term success of Aquagga will only be achieved by addressing the critical barriers to deployment.” Aquagga’s devices annihilates PFAS under super hot, high pressure conditions made caustic and corrosive through the addition of lye. The company has done nine field demonstrations of its technology, including a project at an airport in Alaska, a DoD-funded project in North Carolina involving firefighting foams, and a wastewater demo with the City of Tacoma. It’s now close to signing its first long-term commercial deployment, Pinkard said, “which will be a huge milestone for us.” “It’s really cool to see how much PFAS we’ve destroyed … even in our short journey,” Pinkard said. “And to think about where it could go, what it could enable at scale. So [I’m] very optimistic about Aquagga’s future.
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