| Autor: |
Henderson WM; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD/CEMM/EPD, Athens, Georgia 30605, United States., Evich MG; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD/CEMM/EPD, Athens, Georgia 30605, United States., Washington JW; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD/CEMM/EPD, Athens, Georgia 30605, United States., Ward TT; Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, ORD/CEMM/EPD, Athens, Georgia 30605, United States., Schumacher BA; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD/CEMM/EPD, Athens, Georgia 30605, United States., Zimmerman JH; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD/CEMM/WECD, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27711, United States., Kim YD; Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, ORD/CEMM/EPD, Athens, Georgia 30605, United States., Weber EJ; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD/CEMM/EPD, Athens, Georgia 30605, United States., Williams AC; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD/CEMM/WECD, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27711, United States., Smeltz MG; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD/CPHEA/PHITD, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27711, United States., Glinski DA; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD/CEMM/EPD, Athens, Georgia 30605, United States. |
| Abstrakt: |
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been detected in an array of environmental media due to their ubiquitous use in industrial and consumer products as well as potential release from fluorochemical manufacturing facilities. During their manufacture, many fluorotelomer (FT) facilities rely on neutral intermediates in polymer production including the FT-alcohols (FTOHs). These PFAS are known to transform to the terminal acids (perfluoro carboxylic acids; PFCAs) at rates that vary with environmental conditions. In the current study on soils from a FT facility, we employed gas chromatography coupled with conventional- and high-resolution mass spectrometry (GC-MS and GC-HRMS) to investigate the profile of these precursor compounds, the intermediary secondary alcohols (sFTOHs), FT-acrylates (FTAcr), and FT-acetates (FTAce) in soils around the former FT-production facility. Of these precursors, the general trend in detection intensity was [FTOHs] > [sFTOHs] > [FTAcrs], while for the FTOHs, homologue intensities generally were [12:2 FTOH] > [14:2 FTOH] > [16:2 FTOH] > [10:2 FTOH] > [18:2 FTOH] > [20:2 FTOH] > [8:2 FTOH] ∼ [6:2 FTOH]. The corresponding terminal acids were also detected in all soil samples and positively correlated with the precursor concentrations. GC-HRMS confirmed the presence of industrial manufacturing byproducts such as FT-ethers and FT-esters and aided in the tentative identification of previously unreported dimers and other compounds. The application of GC-HRMS to the measurement and identification of precursor PFAS is in its infancy, but the methodologies described here will help refine its use in tentatively identifying these compounds in the environment. |
