New measurement technique shows volatile PFAS are omnipresent in indoor environments

Passive detection 

Quantifying PFAS that are prevalent indoors and estimating their exposure risk to humans are important as people tend to spend 90% of their time indoor. To accurately measure these compounds indoors, polyethylene (PE) sheets were employed and validated as passive detection tools and analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Air concentrations were compared to dust and carpet concentrations reported elsewhere.

Partitioning between PE sheets of different thicknesses suggested that interactions of the PEs with the compounds are occurring by absorption. Volatile PFAS, specifically fluorotelomer alcohols (FTOHs), were ubiquitous in indoor environments.

Carpets and dust

Concentrations of volatile PFAS from air, carpet, and dust were closely related to each other, indicating that carpets and dust are major sources of FTOHs in air. Nonetheless, air posed the largest exposure risk of FTOHs and biotransformed perfluorinated alkyl acids (PFAA) in young children. This research highlights the need for further reduction of precursors to PFAA.
 

The study “The Air That We Breathe: Neutral and Volatile PFAS in Indoor Air” by Maya E. Morales-McDevitt, Jitka Becanova, Arlene Blum, Thomas A. Bruton, Simon Vojta, Melissa Woodward and Rainer Lohmann was published in American Chemical Society publications.