Manufacturing Origin of Perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) in Atlantic and Canadian Arctic Seawater

Abstract

The extent to which different manufacturing sources and long-range transport pathways contribute to perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) in the world's oceans, particularly in remote locations, is widely debated. Here, the relative contribution of historic (i.e., electrochemically fluorinated) and contemporary (i.e., telomer) manufacturing sources was assessed for PFOA, in various seawater samples by an established isomer profiling technique. The ratios of individual branched PFOA isomers were indistinguishable from those in authentic historic standards in 93% of the samples examined, indicating that marine processes had little influence on isomer profiles, and that isomer profiling is a valid source apportionment tool for seawater. Eastern Atlantic PFOA was largely (83-98%) of historic origin, but this decreased to only 33% close to the Eastern U.S. seaboard. Similarly, PFOA in the Norwegian Sea was near exclusively historic, but the relative contribution decreased to similar to 50% near the Baltic Sea. Such observations of contemporary PFOA in coastal source regions coincided with elevated concentrations, suggesting that the continued production and use of PFOA is currently adding to the marine burden of this contaminant. In the Arctic, a spatial trend was observed whereby PFOA in seawater originating from the Atlantic was predominantly historic (up to 99%), whereas water in the Archipelago (i.e., from the Pacific) was predominantly of contemporary origin (as little as 17% historic). These data help to explain reported temporal and spatial trends from Arctic wildlife biomonitoring, and suggest that the dominant PFOA source(s) to the Pacific and Canadian Arctic Archipelago are either (a) from direct emissions of contemporary PFOA via manufacturing or use in Asia, or (b) from atmospheric transport and oxidation of contemporary PFOA-precursors.,

Published in

Environmental Science and Technology
2012, volume: 46, number: 2, pages: 677-685
Publisher: AMER CHEMICAL SOC

SLU Authors

• Ahrens, Lutz

  • Helmholtz-Centre Geesthacht Centre for Material and Coastal Research

• Kylin, Henrik

  • Linköping University

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences
Analytical Chemistry
Organic Chemistry

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/es202958p

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/53662