Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Environ Sci Technol. 2012 Jan 17;46(2):677-85. doi: 10.1021/es202958p. Epub 2011 Dec 21.
The extent to which different manufacturing sources and long-range transport pathways contribute to perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) in the world's oceans, particularly in remote locations, is widely debated. Here, the relative contribution of historic (i.e., electrochemically fluorinated) and contemporary (i.e., telomer) manufacturing sources was assessed for PFOA in various seawater samples by an established isomer profiling technique. The ratios of individual branched PFOA isomers were indistinguishable from those in authentic historic standards in 93% of the samples examined, indicating that marine processes had little influence on isomer profiles, and that isomer profiling is a valid source apportionment tool for seawater. Eastern Atlantic PFOA was largely (83-98%) of historic origin, but this decreased to only 33% close to the Eastern U.S. seaboard. Similarly, PFOA in the Norwegian Sea was near exclusively historic, but the relative contribution decreased to ∼50% near the Baltic Sea. Such observations of contemporary PFOA in coastal source regions coincided with elevated concentrations, suggesting that the continued production and use of PFOA is currently adding to the marine burden of this contaminant. In the Arctic, a spatial trend was observed whereby PFOA in seawater originating from the Atlantic was predominantly historic (up to 99%), whereas water in the Archipelago (i.e., from the Pacific) was predominantly of contemporary origin (as little as 17% historic). These data help to explain reported temporal and spatial trends from Arctic wildlife biomonitoring, and suggest that the dominant PFOA source(s) to the Pacific and Canadian Arctic Archipelago are either (a) from direct emissions of contemporary PFOA via manufacturing or use in Asia, or (b) from atmospheric transport and oxidation of contemporary PFOA-precursors.
不同制造源和长距离传输途径对世界海洋中全氟辛烷磺酸（PFOA）的贡献程度，特别是在偏远地区，存在广泛争议。在此，通过一种已建立的异构体分析技术，评估了不同海水样本中历史（即电化学氟化）和当代（即端基）制造源对 PFOA 的相对贡献。在检测的 93%的样本中，单个支链 PFOA 异构体的比例与真实历史标准品的比例无法区分，这表明海洋过程对异构体分布的影响很小，并且异构体分析是海水源分配的有效工具。东大西洋的 PFOA 主要（83-98%）来自历史来源，但在靠近美国东海岸的地方这一比例降至仅 33%。同样，挪威海的 PFOA 几乎完全来自历史来源，但在靠近波罗的海的地方相对贡献降至约 50%。在沿海源区观察到当代 PFOA 的这种情况与浓度升高相一致，表明 PFOA 的持续生产和使用目前正在增加这种污染物对海洋的负担。在北极，观察到了一个空间趋势，即来自大西洋的海水中原位 PFOA 主要来自历史（高达 99%），而来自群岛的水（即来自太平洋）主要来自当代（低至 17%的历史）。这些数据有助于解释北极野生动物生物监测中报告的时间和空间趋势，并表明太平洋和加拿大北极群岛的主要 PFOA 来源是（a）亚洲制造或使用当代 PFOA 的直接排放，或（b）大气传输和当代 PFOA 前体的氧化。
