McCord James P, Strynar Mark J, Washington John W, Bergman Erica L, Goodrow Sandra M
US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling, Research Triangle Park, NC.
US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling, Athens, GA.
Environ Sci Technol Lett. 2020 Dec 8;7(12):903-908. doi: 10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00640.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a widespread, environmentally persistent class of anthropogenic chemicals that are widely used in industrial and consumer products and frequently detected in environmental media. Potential human health impacts from long-term exposure to legacy PFAS resulted in the industrial development and use of numerous replacement species in recent decades. Environmental investigative activities have been crucial in identifying the existence and environmental transport of emerging PFAS in environmental media. Previous investigations in an industrially impacted region of southwestern New Jersey has shown consistently elevated levels of legacy PFAS, motivating additional examination by non-targeted mass spectrometry to identify emerging PFAS contamination. This study applied non-targeted analysis to water samples collected in Gloucester and Salem Counties in southwestern New Jersey, revealing the existence of a series of novel chloro-perfluoro-polyether carboxylates and related PFAS species originating from an industrial PFAS user in the region. There is sparse publicly available toxicity information for the emerging chemical species, but estimated concentrations exceeded the state drinking water standards for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA). Non-targeted analysis was used to estimate the effectiveness of point-of-entry water treatment systems for removal of the emerging species and reduced the abundance of PFAS by >90%.
全氟和多氟烷基物质（PFAS）是一类广泛存在、在环境中持久存在的人为化学物质，广泛应用于工业和消费品中，并经常在环境介质中被检测到。长期接触遗留PFAS对人类健康的潜在影响导致近几十年来大量替代物种的工业开发和使用。环境调查活动对于确定新兴PFAS在环境介质中的存在和环境迁移至关重要。此前在新泽西州西南部一个受工业影响的地区进行的调查显示，遗留PFAS的水平一直居高不下，这促使通过非靶向质谱法进行进一步检测，以确定新兴PFAS污染情况。本研究对新泽西州西南部格洛斯特县和塞勒姆县采集的水样进行了非靶向分析，发现了一系列源自该地区一家工业PFAS用户的新型氯代全氟聚醚羧酸盐及相关PFAS物种。对于这些新兴化学物种，公开的毒性信息很少，但估计浓度超过了该州饮用水中全氟辛酸（PFOA）和全氟壬酸（PFNA）的标准。采用非靶向分析方法评估了入口处水处理系统对去除这些新兴物种的有效性，结果显示PFAS的丰度降低了90%以上。
