Scientists Develop New Method for Detecting Airborne PFAS [Video]

Although scientists have known there are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the air, they also knew that many airborne PFAS were going undetected. Now, a new method can detect for gaseous fluorine to better measure the previously undetected airborne PFAS.

PFAS are made up of organofluorine compounds that can release fluorine into the air, so measuring the fluorine makes it easier to detect PFAS than attempting to measure each type of PFAS contaminant, of which there are thousands of types.

Scientists expected there was undetected fluorine, and therefore PFAS, in the air, but they lacked a way to detect these chemicals. Scientists have methods for detecting fluorine in soil and water, but not in the atmosphere, so the research team adapted a method for detecting gaseous chlorine in order to detect fluorine.

The scientists used a platinum catalyzed thermolysis method to measure for gas phase total fluorine in a lab …