Full title: Development of a forensics-based approach to evaluating impacts of PFAS contamination in the environment
Presented on April 28, 2021, by Charles Neslund - Scientific Officer at Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories Environmental - at the 2021 Emerging Contaminants in the Environment Conference
Abstract: Background/Objectives. As the analysis and investigation of sites contaminated with PFAS continues to mature there is a growing interest in determining the contributions of different sources, to the overall contamination. Therefore, the development of analytical methodologies that can start to delineate sources/contributions and assign responsibility can be a useful tool in environmental investigations.
Approach/Activities. There are several tools already available in the analytical chemist’s toolbox, including the recognition of the presence of branched chain isomers, relative ratios, the unique targeted compound profile presented by certain PFAS sources and the judicious use of results from the Total Oxidizable Precursor (TOP) Assay. If we add the results of accurate mass qTOF, applied to targets, known/unknowns and unknown/unknowns, we are progressing towards a robust forensic profiling application.
Results/Lessons Learned. The presentation will describe the process that we went through in deriving a forensics based approached to identifying PFAS source/contributions. We will demonstrate how the various techniques complement each other towards source identification.
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