Understanding the atmospheric measurement and behavior of perfluorooctanoic acid

Abstract

The recently reported quantification of the atmospheric sampling artifact for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) was applied to existing gas and particle concentration measurements. Specifically, gas phase concentrations were increased by a factor of 3.5 and particle-bound concentrations by a factor of 0.1. The correlation constants in two particle-gas partition coefficient (K(QA)) estimation equations were determined for multiple studies with and without correcting for the sampling artifact. Correction for the sampling artifact gave correlation constants with improved agreement to those reported for other neutral organic contaminants, thus supporting the application of the suggested correction factors for perfluorinated carboxylic acids. Applying the corrected correlation constant to a recent multimedia modeling study improved model agreement with corrected, reported, atmospheric concentrations. This work confirms that there is sufficient partitioning to the gas phase to support the long-range atmospheric transport of PFOA.

A review on perfluoroalkyl acids studies: Environmental behaviors, toxic effects, and ecological and health risks

“…PFAAs have certain physiological and ecological toxicity, affecting the population (Boudreau et al 2003;Latala, Nedzi, and Stepnowski 2009), physiological metabolism (Austin et al 2003), membrane system (Liu et al 2008), neurotransmission (Slotkin et al 2008), and gene expression (Hickey et al 2009;Mollenhauer et al 2009). Moreover, PFAAs have been detected in a variety of environmental media, including drinking water (Xiao, Simcik, Gulliver 2013), surface water (Zhou et al 2012;Zhou et al 2013;Sun et al 2011), groundwater (Murakami et al 2009;Loos, Locoro, and Contini 2010), atmosphere (Dreyer et al 2010;Webster and Ellis 2012), silt (Clarke and Smith 2011), soil (Washington et al 2008, sediments (Benskin et al 2011), indoor and outdoor dust (Haug et al 2011), etc. In present review, we aim to summarize and update the information on the occurrence of PFAAs in multiple environmental media and their source as well as the environmental behaviors, toxic effects, and ecological and health risks of PFAAs.…”