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Addressing Urgent Questions for PFAS in the 21st Century
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    Addressing Urgent Questions for PFAS in the 21st Century
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    • Carla Ng*
      Carla Ng
      Departments of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Environmental & Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, United States
      *Email: [email protected]
      More by Carla Ng
    • Ian T. Cousins
      Ian T. Cousins
      Department of Environmental Science, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
    • Jamie C. DeWitt
      Jamie C. DeWitt
      Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27834, United States
    • Juliane Glüge
      Juliane Glüge
      Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
    • Gretta Goldenman
      Gretta Goldenman
      Milieu Consulting SPRL, 1060 Brussels, Belgium
    • Dorte Herzke
      Dorte Herzke
      Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Fram Centre, N-9296 Tromsø, Norway
      Institute for Arctic and Marine Biology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway
      More by Dorte Herzke
    • Rainer Lohmann
      Rainer Lohmann
      Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, Rhode Island 02882, United States
    • Mark Miller
      Mark Miller
      National Institute of Environmental Health Science and U.S. Public Health Service, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, United States
      More by Mark Miller
    • Sharyle Patton
      Sharyle Patton
      Health and Environment Program, Commonweal, Bolinas, California 94924, United States
    • Martin Scheringer
      Martin Scheringer
      Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
      RECETOX, Masaryk University, 625 00 Brno, Czech Republic
    • Xenia Trier
      Xenia Trier
      European Environment Agency, Kgs Nytorv 6, DK-1050 Copenhagen K, Denmark
      More by Xenia Trier
    • Zhanyun Wang
      Zhanyun Wang
      Chair of Ecological Systems Design, Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
      More by Zhanyun Wang
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    Environmental Science & Technology

    Cite this: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2021, 55, 19, 12755–12765
    Click to copy citationCitation copied!
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c03386
    Published September 14, 2021
    Copyright © 2021 American Chemical Society

    Abstract

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    Despite decades of research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), fundamental obstacles remain to addressing worldwide contamination by these chemicals and their associated impacts on environmental quality and health. Here, we propose six urgent questions relevant to science, technology, and policy that must be tackled to address the “PFAS problem”: (1) What are the global production volumes of PFAS, and where are PFAS used? (2) Where are the unknown PFAS hotspots in the environment? (3) How can we make measuring PFAS globally accessible? (4) How can we safely manage PFAS-containing waste? (5) How do we understand and describe the health effects of PFAS exposure? (6) Who pays the costs of PFAS contamination? The importance of each question and barriers to progress are briefly described, and several potential paths forward are proposed. Given the diversity of PFAS and their uses, the extreme persistence of most PFAS, the striking ongoing lack of fundamental information, and the inequity of the health and environmental impacts from PFAS contamination, there is a need for scientific and regulatory communities to work together, with cooperation from PFAS-related industries, to fill in critical data gaps and protect human health and the environment.

    Copyright © 2021 American Chemical Society

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    Cited By

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    This article is cited by 20 publications.

    1. Katherine E. Manz. Considerations for Measurements of Aggregate PFAS Exposure in Precision Environmental Health. ACS Measurement Science Au 2024, Article ASAP.
    2. Nguyen Cong-Hau, Sangki Choi, Heejong Son, Yunho Lee. Quantification of Extractable Total Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Water Using Persulfate Preoxidation, Solid Phase Extraction, and Chemical Defluorination with Sodium Biphenyl or Ion-Pair Formation with Methylene Blue. ACS ES&T Water 2024, Article ASAP.
    3. Chao Nie, Jiaxu Shui, Liang Huang, Jianlong Wang, Yizhong Shen, Yongning Wu. Programming of a Portable Digital Monitoring System-Integrated DNA Aptamer Reversely Regulated Oxidase-Like Nanozyme for Real-Time Dynamic Analysis of Atmospheric Perfluorooctanoic Acid. Analytical Chemistry 2024, 96 (33) , 13512-13521. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.4c01956
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    13. Jiahao Yuan, Li Ye, Jieyi Zhang, Xiaotong Du, Ande Ma, Jialiang Pan. Nonaqueous Electroextraction with Tunable Selectivity for Direct, Fast, and Exhaustive Enrichment of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Acids from Oils and Food Contact Materials. Analytical Chemistry 2022, 94 (45) , 15663-15670. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.2c02727
    14. Jort Hammer, Satoshi Endo. Volatility and Nonspecific van der Waals Interaction Properties of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS): Evaluation Using Hexadecane/Air Partition Coefficients. Environmental Science & Technology 2022, 56 (22) , 15737-15745. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c05804
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    17. Jordin Metz, Pengxiao Zuo, Bo Wang, Michael S. Wong, Pedro J. J. Alvarez. Perfluorooctanoic acid Degradation by UV/Chlorine. Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2022, 9 (8) , 673-679. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.estlett.2c00452
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    Environmental Science & Technology

    Cite this: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2021, 55, 19, 12755–12765
    Click to copy citationCitation copied!
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c03386
    Published September 14, 2021
    Copyright © 2021 American Chemical Society

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