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. 2023 Feb 28;57(8):3062-3074.
doi: 10.1021/acs.est.2c06015. Epub 2023 Feb 13.

Occurrence, Fate, and Related Health Risks of PFAS in Raw and Produced Drinking Water

Mohammad Sadia  1 , Ingeborg Nollen  1 , Rick Helmus  1 , Thomas L Ter Laak  1   2 , Frederic Béen  2 , Antonia Praetorius  1 , Annemarie P van Wezel  1
Affiliations

Occurrence, Fate, and Related Health Risks of PFAS in Raw and Produced Drinking Water

Mohammad Sadia et al. Environ Sci Technol. .

Abstract

This study investigates human exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) via drinking water and evaluates human health risks. An analytical method for 56 target PFAS, including ultrashort-chain (C2-C3) and branched isomers, was developed. The limit of detection (LOD) ranged from 0.009 to 0.1 ng/L, except for trifluoroacetic-acid and perfluoropropanoic-acid with higher LODs of 35 and 0.24 ng/L, respectively. The method was applied to raw and produced drinking water from 18 Dutch locations, including groundwater or surface water as source, and applied various treatment processes. Ultrashort-chain (300 to 1100 ng/L) followed by the group of perfluoroalkyl-carboxylic-acids (PFCA, ≥C4) (0.4 to 95.1 ng/L) were dominant. PFCA and perfluoroalkyl-sulfonic-acid (≥C4), including precursors, showed significantly higher levels in drinking water produced from surface water. However, no significant difference was found for ultrashort PFAS, indicating the need for groundwater protection. Negative removal of PFAS occasionally observed for advanced treatment indicates desorption and/or degradation of precursors. The proportion of branched isomers was higher in raw and produced drinking water as compared to industrial production. Drinking water produced from surface water, except for a few locations, exceed non-binding provisional guideline values proposed; however, all produced drinking waters met the recent soon-to-be binding drinking-water-directive requirements.

Keywords: PFAS; PFAS isomers; drinking water; exposure assessment; water quality.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
LC–HRMS chromatogram showing the different PFAS after injection of a 4 ng/mL PFAS mixture using the described analytical method. Results for ESI and IB-ESI are shown.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Occurrence of different PFAS classes in raw water (RW) and produced drinking water (DW) for the various sampling locations, concentration (ng/L) on the primary axis as depicted without the dominant ultrashort PFAS, concentration (ng/L) on the secondary axis for the ultrashort PFAS. PFAS class: ultrashort chain PFAS (C2–C3), PFCA: perfluoro-carboxylic acids (C4–C14) PFSA: perfluoro-sulfonic acids (C4–C10), Prec: variety of precursors (C4–C24).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Removal efficiencies (%) in drinking water originated from surface water treated using advanced methods (GAC, PAC, UV/GAC, ozone/GAC, or RO) for each PFAS class: ultrashort (C2–C3), shortPFCA (C4–C6), longPFCA (C7–C14), shortPFSA (C4–C6), longPFSA (C7–C10), and Prec: a variety of precursors (C4–C24).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Relative contribution of the branched isomers for raw and produced drinking water. The contribution of the ECF production process is represented by a horizontal line for each PFAS. Error bar indicates the standard deviation from triplicate samples.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Occurrence of PFAS as compared to (a) binding DWD guidelines and (b) non-binding preliminary quality guideline. The red (b), brown [primary y-axis on the left, (b)], and light-blue [secondary y-axis on the right, (b)] dashed lines represent the safe level based on the non-binding EFSA 2020 (4-PFAS), DWD (20-PFAS), and DWD total PFAS, respectively. The green line [primary axis, to be compared with the brown line, figure (a)], light blue, and yellow shadows [secondary axis, to be compared with the dashed blue line, (a)] present, respectively, the concentration of the sum of 20 DWD-PFAS, total investigated PFAS without the ultrashort chain, and the ultrashort chain PFAS.
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