Screening for PFOS and PFOA in European air using passive samplers

Abstract

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) have been widely detected in the environment and in wildlife, including biota in remote areas, such as the Arctic. A monitoring programme to measure these two compounds in the atmosphere simultaneously at many sites using traditional sampling techniques (active air sampler) would be difficult to achieve. This study presents the results of using polyurethane foam-based passive air samplers (PUF-PASs) to sample ionic perfluoroalkyl sulfonates (PFASs) in three different areas: northwest of England (15 sites), UK–Norway transect (11 sites) and European survey (23 sites), for 2–3 months of exposure. Only PFOA and PFOS were regularly detected in the samplers. PFOA (200–27 000 pg per sample per day) and PFOS (1.5–720 pg per sample per day) levels present in samplers deployed in northwest of England were estimated in this study. In the UK–Norway transect campaign, only the UK samples were found to contain PFOA (100–1200 pg per sample per day) and PFOS (2.7–7.7 pg per sample per day). It was difficult to see clear distribution trends of PFOA (4.7–540 pg per sample per day) and PFOS (1.9–69 pg per sample per day) in the EU survey. However, PFOA appeared relatively elevated in samples taken close to the coastline of the North Sea. This study gives some encouragement to the idea that PUF-PAS can be used to sample PFASs. From our knowledge, this is the first study using untreated PUF disks to sample ionic PFASs in the atmosphere.