Perfluorinated compounds in soils from Liaodong Bay with concentrated fluorine industry parks in China

Abstract

With the shift of manufacturing plants from more industrialized countries to China, occurrences of Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in the environment has attracted more attention. Concentrations of PFCs in 14 soils collected from the coast of Liaodong Bay were determined and spatial distributions used to identify potential sources of PFCs. A mass balance approach was introduced to quantify concentrations of Total Fluorine (TF) and Extractable Organic Fluorine (EOF). Concentrations of ∑PFCs ranged from <MDL to 3.14ngg−1. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluoroundecanoic acid (PFUdA) were predominant with maximum concentrations of 0.47ngg−1 and 0.42ngg−1. Statistical analysis indicated that ∑PFCs and EOF account for a very small portion in TF and there is limited correlation among ∑PFCs, EOF and TF in soils. Two fluorine industry parks have recently been established in the vicinity of the study site, where electrochemical fluorination (ECF) is used to synthesize ammonium perfluorooctanoate (APFO) and PFOA. The majority of the PFCs detected had chain lengths of 8 carbons or more, which suggests that direct emission from plants in the two parks was a major source of PFCs in soils of the coastal area of Liaodong Bay.