ELIXIR™: a solution for firefighting vehicles

ArianeGroup will help two French Departmental Fire and Rescue Services (Services départementaux d’incendie et de secours or SDIS) carry out the first industrial decontamination of firefighting vehicles thanks to ELIXIR™.

In June 2025, the SDIS from the Charente department (16) and the SDIS from the Charente-Maritime department (17) were selected by the 2025 Fonds Innov’Achats programme of the French Ministry of Interior to conduct an unprecedented decontamination operation in France: to transition their firefighting vehicles to fluorine-free emulsifiers (firefighting foam concentrates), in compliance with the European regulation (EU) 2024/2462 which will come into effect in 2027.

To carry out the remediation, SDISs chose ArianeGroup and its ELIXIR™ solution, a decontamination process that destroys remaining emulsifiers containing “forever” chemicals or PFAS.

A unique process for certified remediation

Operations conducted on 23 firefighting vehicles at both SDISs – on their premises and at the ArianeGroup Saint-Médard-en-Jalles (Issac) facilities – will help extract fluorine residues from truck tanks and emulsifier equipment (pumps, hoses, valves).

“To decontaminate a vehicle, the ArianeGroup teams and our partner Curium will conduct a three-step remediation process: a pre-rinse with additive-containing water, a wash with ArianeGroup’s specifically developed decontamination solution, and a final rinse with water”, described Thibault Derode, Head Engineer at ArianeGroup. “Stored in tanks certified to transport 1000 litres, waste streams are sent to the ArianeGroup facilities in Toulouse in order to be destroyed by supercritical hydrothermal oxidation in the ELIXIR™ reactor. The decontamination process has been determined to minimise the time vehicles are off the road and the quantity of waste streams to treat.”

Based on the use of water at high temperature and high pressure, ELIXIR™ helps eliminate PFAS.

A clean solution to support France’s towns and cities

ELIXIR™ provides a clear-cut and certified answer to the transition challenges of SDISs:

• Environmental preservation
• Reduction of firefighter exposure to chemical pollutants
• Rapid analyses and protocols best suited to each type of vehicle
• Cost optimisation by increasing vehicle life-spans
• No waste discharge on customer premises
• Delivery of a decontamination certificate
• Clean destruction process, no use of fossil fuels
• Sustainable elimination of PFAS

For Christian Lepage, deputy director of SDIS 17, “Such a remediation approach is crucial to ensure that our operational capabilities comply with new standards, and to protect our personnel. ArianeGroup provides us with a French effective certified solution.”

For Anne Duget, Sales Manager, “ELIXIR™ is a means for ArianeGroup to use its technological expertise to advance civil and environmental security challenges. We are proud to help SDIS 16 and 17 navigate this key transition.”