Spatial distribution and source apportionment of PFASs in surface sediments from five lake regions, China

Abstract

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been found in environment globally. However, studies on PFAS occurrence in sediments of lakes or reservoirs remain relatively scarce. In this study, two hundred and sixty-two surface sediment samples were collected from forty-eight lakes and two reservoirs all over China. Average PFAS concentrations in surface sediments from each lake or reservoir varied from 0.086 ng/g dw to 5.79 ng/g dw with an average of 1.15 ng/g dw. Among five lake regions, average PFAS concentrations for the lakes from Eastern Plain Region were the highest. Perfluorooctanoic acid, perfluoroundecanoic acid and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) were the predominant PFASs in surface sediments. The significant positive correlations between PFAS concentrations and total organic carbon, total nitrogen and total phosphorus contents in sediments revealed the influences of sedimentary characteristics on PFAS occurrence. A two-dimensional hierarchical cluster analysis heat map was depicted to analyze the possible origins of sediments and individual PFAS. The food-packaging, textile, electroplating, firefighting and semiconductor industry emission sources and the precious metals and coating industry emission sources were identified as the main sources by two receptor models, with contributions of 77.7 and 22.3% to the total concentrations of C4-C14- perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids and PFOS, respectively.

Primary Sources of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons to Streambed Sediment in Great Lakes Tributaries Using Multiple Lines of Evidence

“…A strength of the PMF model is that it considers the uncertainty of individual compound concentrations and the total sample concentration. The uncertainty of individual compound concentrations was computed using Equation 1 (Qi et al 2016): where DL is the detection limit. The error term (i.e., measurement error) was calculated as the median relative percentage difference between duplicate samples.…”

Short- and long-chain perfluoroalkyl substances in the water, suspended particulate matter, and surface sediment of a turbid river

“…As for PFSAs, the concentration of PFOS was higher than PFBS at all the sampling sites, suggesting PFOS still prevails over PFBS in the Yellow River. The main possible sources of PFOS include food-packaging, textile, electroplating, firefighting and semiconductor industry emission sources and the precious metals and coating industry emission sources in China (Qi et al, 2016).…”

“…For the tributaries, the highest value of the total PFAS concentration was observed at the Dongpinghu Lake with five of the eleven PFASs analyzed being the maximum among the studied tributaries. These high PFAS levels may be caused by human activities by the lake, such as some restaurants and fishery using lots of food-packaging and textile materials which are possible sources of PFASs (Qi et al, 2016). The highest PFAS value at the Dongpinghu Lake might be one reason for the highest PFAS concentration in the sediment of the Aishan station because the Dongpinghu Lake lies at the upper stream (about 30 km away) of the Aishan station.…”

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in wastewater treatment plants and drinking water treatment plants: Removal efficiency and exposure risk

“…Because of the high energy of the CeF covalent bond (approximately 466 kJ/mol), PFASs are extremely resistant to biological and chemical degradation and show various toxicological effects (Mattsson et al, 2015;Khalil et al, 2016). PFASs have been detected in water (Post et al, 2013;Pan et al, 2014a;Lorenzo et al, 2016), sediment (Naile et al, 2010;Zhao et al, 2013;Qi et al, 2016), sludge (Llorca et al, 2011;Armstrong et al, 2016), wildlife (Pan et al, 2014b;Letcher et al, 2015), and non-occupationally exposed humans throughout the world (Hansen et al, 2001;Buser and Scinicariello, 2016). Long chain PFASs are highly bioaccumulative in biota, with bioaccumulation factors (BAF) up to 23,000 for perfluorotridecanoic acid (PFTrDA) in rainbow trout (Banks et al, 1994;Martin et al, 2003), and they can be biomagnified along the food web (Xu et al, 2014).…”