Closing the Mass Balance on Fluorine on Papers and Textiles

Abstract

Papers and textiles that are treated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are sources of human and environmental exposure. Data for individual PFASs, such as perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA), are not placed into the context of total fluorine for papers and textiles. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) were used to quantify volatile and ionic PFASs, respectively, and the total oxidizable precursor (TOP) assay was used to quantify precursors that form perfluoroalkyl carboxylates. Molar sums of PFASs obtained by GC-MS, LC-MS/MS, and precursors were compared to total fluorine (nmol F/cm) determined by particle-induced gamma ray emission (PIGE) spectroscopy, measured before and after extraction. Volatile and ionic PFASs and unknown precursors accounted for 0-2.2%, 0-0.41%, and 0.021-14%, respectively, of the total nmol F/cm determined by PIGE. After extraction, papers and textiles retained 64 ± 28% to 110 ± 30% of the original nmol F/cm as determined by PIGE, indicating that the majority of fluorine remains associated with the papers and textiles. The sum of PFASs in the volatile, ionic, and precursor fraction, and total fluorine after extraction indicate that mass balance was achieved (within analytical error) of the initial total fluorine measured by PIGE.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and fluorine mass balance in cosmetic products from the Swedish market: implications for environmental emissions and human exposure

“…Thus, the homologue pattern of PFASs in cosmetics appear to follow the same trend as treated textiles and papers where recent studies typically report the highest concentrations and detection frequency for C6 compounds. 37,38,46 Fluorine mass balance and unidentied PFASs CIC spike/recovery experiments involving samples fortied with different combinations of PFOS and NaF (see method section for details) revealed that inorganic uorine was effectively removed during the extraction procedure (i.e. uorine was not detected in samples fortied only with NaF).…”

“…23,24 Despite the availability of these analytical platforms, many PFASs lack authentic standards, making them unquan-tiable using the aforementioned approaches. In order to circumvent the problems of multiple MS-based approaches and standard availability, combustion ion chromatography (CIC) [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] and particle induced gamma ray emission (PIGE) 28,37,38 have recently been introduced for indirect quan-tication of total and extractable organic uorine (TF and EOF, respectively) in samples. As these approaches are uorine-specic, a standard of any uorinated substance may be used for quantication.…”

“…Early applications of CIC and PIGE in reghting foams, biota and textiles have revealed that only a small fraction of the organic uorine content can be accounted for by known PFASs. 31,33,37 The overall aim of this study was to quantify a diverse range of PFASs in CPs on the Swedish market and assess the fraction of TF and EOF accounted for by these substances. To achieve this goal we used a combination of targeted LC-MS/MS analysis and uorine-specic CIC measurements, combined with uorine mass balance calculations.…”

Temporal Trends (1981–2013) of Per‐ and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances and Total Fluorine in Baltic cod (Gadus morhua)

“…A recent report by the Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) lists 4730 PFAS‐related CAS registry numbers, an immense quantity to monitor and regulate if handled on a substance‐by‐substance basis (Ritscher et al ). In response, several analytical techniques have emerged over recent years for quantifying total fluorine and/or extractable organic fluorine (EOF) in environmental samples and consumer products, which complement compound‐specific PFAS analysis (Miyake et al ; Yeung et al ; Robel et al ; Schultes et al , ). By combining these data using fluorine mass balance calculations, the fraction of unidentified fluorine in a sample can be estimated (Schultes et al ).…”

Temporal variations of perfluoroalkyl substances partitioning between surface water, suspended sediment, and biota in a macrotidal estuary

“…Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are highly fluorinated chemicals used in a variety of applications and consumer products (Robel et al 2017;Tokranov et al 2018), which can result in their emission to the environment (Wang et al 2017). Due to concerns on environmental and health impacts of PFASs, monitoring surveys have assessed the extent of contamination of aquatic ecosystems (Lindim et al, 2015;Campo et al, 2016;Loos et al, 2017) and water sources (Hu et al, 2016;Boone et al, 2019).…”