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. 2020 Aug 5;17(16):5642.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17165642.

Impact of the Sediment Organic vs. Mineral Content on Distribution of the Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Lake Sediment

Dauren Mussabek  1   2 , Kenneth M Persson  1   3   4 , Ronny Berndtsson  1   5 , Lutz Ahrens  2 , Kei Nakagawa  6 , Tomomi Imura  7
Affiliations

Impact of the Sediment Organic vs. Mineral Content on Distribution of the Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Lake Sediment

Dauren Mussabek et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Contamination of the water and sediment with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) was studied for the lake impacted by the release of PFAS-containing aqueous film forming foam (AFFF). PFAS concentrations were analyzed in lake water and sediment core samples. ΣPFAS concentrations were in the range of 95-100 ng L-1 in the lake water and 3.0-61 µg kg-1 dry weight (dw) in sediment core samples, both dominated by perfluorohexane sulfonate, perfluorooctane sulfonate; 6:2 fluortelomer sulfonate was inconsistently present in water and sediment core samples. The sediment-water partitioning coefficients (log Kd) were estimated and ranged 0.6-2.3 L kg-1 for individual perfluoroalkyl carboxylates (PFCAs) and 0.9-5.6 L kg-1 for individual perfluoroalkane sulfonates (PFSAs). The influence of the sediment inorganic content and organic matter on PFAS distribution was investigated. In studied sediments, the mineral content (corresponding to <5% of the bulk media mass) was mainly represented by sulfur, iron and calcium. The PFAS distribution was found strongly connected to the sediment mineral content (i.e., Fe, Pb, Rb and As), whereas the sediment organic carbon content did not to have a direct influence on the PFAS distribution. The aim of this study was to improve our understanding of the PFAS distribution in the natural heterogeneous media.

Keywords: AFFF; PFAS; distribution; sediment; water.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study site description: (a) site location; (b) area topography and hydrogeology (including groundwater flow boundaries (purple dot-dash), flow direction (blue arrows) and reservoir (blue area)), airfield territory (solid orange), AFFF emission sources (fire station and fire training facility) and lake location (black box); and (c) lake bathymetry and sampling locations. GIS data: GSD Terrängkartan vektor, Lantmäteriet (base map); GSD Höjddata, Lantmäteriet (topography) and SGU Grundvattenmagasin and Grundvatten, SGU (hydrogeology).
Figure 2
Figure 2
PFAS concentration (µg kg−1 dw) and relative composition profile of lake sediment Cores E–G; “not detected” includes concentrations of PFHpA, PFNA, PFDA, PFUnDA, PFDoDa, MeFOSAA, EtFOSAA and 0.5 MDL for the undetected PFAS.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Bi-plot on parameter contribution the data variance within the first (43% explained) and second (24% explained) component spaces, including PFCAs and FTSA (red); PFSAs (blue); sediment iron, lead, rubidium, arsenic and titanium (black); sediment sulfur and calcium (yellow); sediment densities (ρdry bulk and ρbulk) and moisture content (MC) (magenta); and fraction organic carbon (fOC, green).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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