Read the full article by Katherine Bourzac (C&EN)
“Rainwater collected in the Ohio-Indiana region contains both new and phased-out per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), according to research presented Monday at the American Chemical Society Spring 2021 meeting in the Division of Environmental Chemistry. College of Wooster chemist Jennifer A. Faust explained that these persistent pollutants are transported in the atmosphere and can be deposited far from the source via precipitation. Her group wanted to know how much variation there was in rainwater PFAS levels within a region. This information can lead researchers back to point sources of the chemicals.
Faust’s team used mass spectrometry to detect 17 kinds of PFAS in rainwater collected in summer 2019 at 7 urban, suburban, and rural sites. ‘We saw PFAS everywhere,’ she said, at concentrations of 50-850 ng/L…”