Henry Barbara J, Timmer Niels
W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., Elkton, MD, United States.
Charles River Laboratories, Den Bosch BV, 's Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.
Chemosphere. 2025 Sep;385:144569. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2025.144569. Epub 2025 Jul 28.
The term per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) covers a wide and diverse array of chemistry often defined as containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon. PFAS may be non-polymeric (perfluoroalkyl substances or polyfluoroalkyl substances) or polymeric (fluoropolymers, perfluoropolyethers or side-chain fluorinated polymers). Although peer-reviewed publications have demonstrated that polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) has low toxicity, high stability, high chemical resistance, and is not bioaccumulative, the literature does not contain environmental fate and behavior testing. This paper presents environmental fate and behavior results for a well characterized PTFE-FA (high molecular weight, fine powder, microparticulate PTFE meeting the ASTM D4895 specification). Physicochemical properties, biotic and abiotic degradation (in air, water, soil and sediment), transformation, mobility, partitioning, long range transport potential, and application of this data to the state-of-the-science polymer risk assessment are discussed. This paper asks if PTFE-FA was found in the environment, would it degrade to and subsequently release substances of concern like non-polymeric PFAS. These results demonstrate PTFE-FA's absence of mobility, degradation, adsorption to soil/sediment, partitioning to air (as a gas or vapor) from water or organic matter, long-range transport in air (as a gas or vapor), water or soil, transformation to and subsequent release of non-polymeric PFAS. Therefore, the persistence of PTFE-FA does not imply future degradation, transformation and subsequent release of substances of concern. As the EU PFAS restriction proposal evolves, this data reduces uncertainty in this fluoropolymer risk assessment based on the lack of degradation, transformation and subsequent release of substances of concern. Evaluation of environmental fate for micro- and nanoparticles and fluoropolymer end-of-life was out of scope.
全氟和多氟烷基物质（PFAS）一词涵盖了种类广泛、化学性质多样的物质，通常定义为含有至少一个全氟化碳。PFAS可以是非聚合的（全氟烷基物质或多氟烷基物质）或聚合的（含氟聚合物、全氟聚醚或侧链氟化聚合物）。尽管经过同行评审的出版物表明聚四氟乙烯（PTFE）毒性低、稳定性高、耐化学性强且不会生物累积，但文献中没有关于其环境归宿和行为的测试。本文介绍了一种特性明确的PTFE-FA（符合ASTM D4895规范的高分子量、细粉、微粒状PTFE）的环境归宿和行为结果。讨论了其物理化学性质、生物和非生物降解（在空气、水、土壤和沉积物中）、转化、迁移性、分配、远距离传输潜力，以及该数据在科学聚合物风险评估中的应用。本文提出问题：如果在环境中发现了PTFE-FA，它是否会降解并随后释放出如非聚合PFAS等令人担忧的物质。这些结果表明PTFE-FA没有迁移性、不会降解、不会吸附到土壤/沉积物上、不会从水或有机物中分配到空气中（作为气体或蒸气）、不会在空气（作为气体或蒸气）、水或土壤中进行远距离传输、不会转化为非聚合PFAS并随后释放。因此，PTFE-FA的持久性并不意味着未来会降解、转化并随后释放出令人担忧的物质。随着欧盟PFAS限制提案的推进，基于缺乏令人担忧的物质的降解、转化和随后释放，该数据降低了这种含氟聚合物风险评估中的不确定性。对微纳米颗粒和含氟聚合物寿命终结的环境归宿评估不在本文范围内。
