Extracts of various textiles in the autosampler of the combustion ion chromatography
Source: BAM
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a chemically synthesized class of more than 7 million organic compounds specifically designed for their application as grease, water, and stain repellent material coatings or as additives used in a wide variety of industrial applications and products of daily use. The persistence, the associated effects on the environment, and potential carcinogenic properties of PFAS, have rapidly emerged them as a major area of interest and regulatory. In 2023, the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) published a proposal to ban non-essential use of all PFAS. The fast alteration of compound design leads to a much more demanding assessment of hazardous chemicals, which is already time-consuming and limited by analytical approaches. Despite being challenging, numerous extraction protocols for PFAS in consumer products have been established based on analysis via liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) or gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). To avoid these limitations, alternative sum parameter approaches have been developed, based on combustion ion chromatography. These methods were applied to 39 different consumer products containing fluoropolymers or monomeric PFAS taken from four different categories: outdoor textiles, paper packaging, carpeting, and permanent baking sheets. Overall, the use of sum parameter approaches provided a more comprehensive overview of PFAS analysis in consumer products than standardized target analytical methods, which should therefore be considered as a complement in future PFAS studies.
Investigation of pH-dependent extraction methods for PFAS in (fluoropolymer-based) consumer products: A comparative study between targeted and sum parameter analysis
Philipp Roesch, Andrea Schinnen, Maren Riedel, Thomas Sommerfeld, George Sawal, Nicole Bandow, Christian Vogel, Ute Kalbe, Franz-Georg Simon
Chemosphere, Volume 351, 2024