5.1 This test method has been developed by the U.S. EPA Region 5 Chicago Regional Laboratory (CRL).
5.2 PFCs are widely used in various industrial and commercial products; they are persistent, bio-accumulative, and ubiquitous in the environment. PFCs have been reported to exhibit developmental toxicity, hepatotoxicity, immunotoxicity, and hormone disturbance. A draft Toxicological Profile for Perfluoroalkyls from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is available.7 PFCs have been detected in soils, sludges, and surface and drinking waters. Hence, there is a need for a quick, easy, and robust method to determine these compounds at trace levels in various soil matrices for understanding of the sources and pathways of exposure.
5.3 This method has been used to determine selected polyfluorinated compounds in sand (Table 4) and four ASTM reference soils (Table 5).
TABLE 4 Single-Laboratory Recovery Data in Ottawa Sand
| Sample | Measured ng/kg from Ottawa Sand P&A Data (400 ng/kg spike for all PFCs except 2000 ng/kg for PFBA and PFPeA and 8000 ng/kg spike for FHEA, FDEA, and FOEA) | ||||||||||
| PFTreA | PFTriA | PFDoA | PFUnA | ||||||||