Scientists Develop New Method for Detecting Airborne PFAS

Although scientists have known there are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the air, they also knew that many airborne PFAS were going undetected. Now, a new method can detect for gaseous fluorine to better measure the previously undetected airborne PFAS.

PFAS are made up of organofluorine compounds that can release fluorine into the air, so measuring the fluorine makes it easier to detect PFAS than attempting to measure each type of PFAS contaminant, of which there are thousands of types.

Scientists expected there was undetected fluorine, and therefore PFAS, in the air, but they lacked a way to detect these chemicals. Scientists have methods for detecting fluorine in soil and water, but not in the atmosphere, so the research team adapted a method for detecting gaseous chlorine in order to detect fluorine.

The scientists used a platinum catalyzed thermolysis method to measure for gas phase total fluorine in a lab setting and outside. By using chemicals like fluorosurfactant liquids, the researchers were able to determine that between 65% and 99% of gaseous fluorine in the lab wasn’t typically accounted for. Outside, they found about 50% of the gaseous fluorine wasn’t usually accounted for. The team published their findings in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

“I expected missing fluorine, but I didn’t expect it to be so much. This new technique can measure all fluorinated things in the atmosphere, which has never been done before and shows the majority cannot be accounted for using our usual measurements,” Cora Young, senior author of the study, said in a statement. “It’s important as missing gaseous fluorine accounts for a huge part of airborne PFAS compared to what we actually measure at the moment, which means a lot of the PFAS aren’t being detected.”

When we look at PFAS in the environment, we find “missing” fluorine in virtually every solid or liquid sample—i.e., more fluorine than the sum of individual measured chemicals. Our new method shows there is lots of missing fluorine in air too: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/…

[image or embed]

— Cora Young (@svocora.bsky.social) September 5, 2024 at 8:13 AM

According to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), there may be links between PFAS exposure and higher cholesterol levels, lower antibody responses to certain vaccines, and increased risk of kidney and testicular cancers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported that PFAS exposure, including breathing in PFAS, could be associated with reproductive effects in adults and developmental effects or delays in children.

Currently, Young doesn’t believe this is a sign to panic over atmospheric PFAS, but it does warrant more research into how much PFAS are in the air and how they could be affecting the environment and human health.

“Any fluorinated gas is a potent greenhouse gas, but the impact of that depends on how long it lasts in the atmosphere, but what is the impact of breathing this? When it comes to outdoor air and human exposure, we don’t know a lot about how much we breathe in,” Young explained.