TY - JOUR
T1 - Increases in Trifluoroacetate Concentrations in Surface Waters over Two Decades
AU - Cahill, Thomas M.
N1 - Funding Information:
I thank Catherine Cahill for the collection of the samples in Alaska and the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences for their financial support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/7/5
Y1 - 2022/7/5
N2 - Trifluoroacetate (TFA) is a persistent perfluorinated alkanoic acid anion that has many anthropogenic sources, with fluorocarbon refrigerants being a major one. After an initial burst of research in the late 1990s and early 2000s, research on this ubiquitous pollutant declined as atmospheric emissions of the precursor compounds grew rapidly. Thus, there is little contemporaneous information about the concentrations of TFA in the environment and how they have changed over time. This research determined the change in TFA concentrations in streams by resampling a transect that was originally sampled in 1998. The transect was designed to determine the regional distribution of TFA both upwind and downwind of major metropolitan areas in Northern California as well as a set of globally remote sites in Alaska. The results showed that TFA concentrations increased by an average of 6-fold over the intervening 23 years, which resulted in a median concentration of 180 ng/L (range 21.3-2790). The highest concentrations were found in streams immediately downwind of the San Francisco Bay Area, while substantially lower concentrations were found in the upwind, regionally remote, and globally remote sites. The C3to C5perfluorinated alkanoic acids were also investigated, but they were rarely detected with this methodology.
AB - Trifluoroacetate (TFA) is a persistent perfluorinated alkanoic acid anion that has many anthropogenic sources, with fluorocarbon refrigerants being a major one. After an initial burst of research in the late 1990s and early 2000s, research on this ubiquitous pollutant declined as atmospheric emissions of the precursor compounds grew rapidly. Thus, there is little contemporaneous information about the concentrations of TFA in the environment and how they have changed over time. This research determined the change in TFA concentrations in streams by resampling a transect that was originally sampled in 1998. The transect was designed to determine the regional distribution of TFA both upwind and downwind of major metropolitan areas in Northern California as well as a set of globally remote sites in Alaska. The results showed that TFA concentrations increased by an average of 6-fold over the intervening 23 years, which resulted in a median concentration of 180 ng/L (range 21.3-2790). The highest concentrations were found in streams immediately downwind of the San Francisco Bay Area, while substantially lower concentrations were found in the upwind, regionally remote, and globally remote sites. The C3to C5perfluorinated alkanoic acids were also investigated, but they were rarely detected with this methodology.
KW - PFAA
KW - PFPeA
KW - PFPrA
KW - TFA
KW - atmospheric deposition
KW - trifluoroacetic acid
KW - ultrashort-chain perfluoroalkyl acids
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85134083181&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85134083181&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acs.est.2c01826
DO - 10.1021/acs.est.2c01826
M3 - Article
C2 - 35736541
AN - SCOPUS:85134083181
SN - 0013-936X
VL - 56
SP - 9428
EP - 9434
JO - Environmental Science and Technology
JF - Environmental Science and Technology
IS - 13
ER -