Polyfluorinated telomers in precipitation and surface water in an urban area of Japan

Although fluorotelomer alcohols (FTOHs) have been detected in various environmental matrices worldwide, no studies have been conducted to evaluate their concentrations in surface water or precipitation. Therefore, we developed a sensitive and reliable method to analyze various environmental aqueous samples for the presence of trace levels of 6:2 FTOH, 8:2 FTOH, 10:2 FTOH, 8:2 FTOAcr and 8:2 FTOMethacr FTOlefin using gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry. The recoveries obtained using this method ranged from 57.8% to 78.2% and the detection limits were 0.5, 0.2, 0.2, 0.05 and 0.1 ng L−1 for 6:2 FTOH, 8:2 FTOH, 10:2 FTOH, 8:2 FTOAcr and 8:2 FTOMethacr, respectively. Liquid and suspended phases of the examined samples were analyzed. The analysis revealed presence of telomer alcohols from the liquid phase only. Of the FTOHs evaluated, 6:2 FTOH and 8:2 FTOMethacr FTOlefin were not found in any of the environmental samples. The average concentrations of 8:2 FTOH, 10:2 FTOH and 8:2 FTOAcr of the precipitation samples were 1.97, 0.82 and 0.21 ng L−1, respectively. In surface water samples, the highest concentrations of 8:2 FTOH, 10:2 FTOH and 8:2 FTOAcr were 3.38, 4.06 and 0.16 ng L−1, which were observed in samples from the Daini-Neyagawa, Yamato and Kanzaki rivers, respectively. The total concentration of FTOHs in wastewater treatment plant effluents (23.2 ng L−1) was much higher than that of surface water (10.8 ng L−1). Taken together, the results of this study indicate that FTOHs released into the air contaminate rain and that those released from water disposal sites contaminate surface water.