Occurrence and fate of perfluoroalkyl substances in marine sediments from the Chinese Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, and East China Sea

- A general decreasing trend of PFASs from the coast areas to the open sea was found.
- The major factors influencing spatial distributions of PFASs were pH and longitude.
- Sediment cores showed increasing trend of PFASs from the lower to the upper layers.

In this study, 166 surface sediments and 3 sediment cores from the Bohai Sea (BS), Yellow Sea (YS) and East China Sea (ECS) in China were collected to investigate the spatial and temporal distributions and the transport of PFASs. PFASs concentrations in the surface sediments ranged from below detection limit (