Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been used broadly in industries, firefighting foams, surfactant materials and consumer products. These compounds are very resistant to degradation in the environment and high exposure to these compounds may cause health issues such as cancer and immunosuppression. Many of the consumer products will end up as waste and later end up in landfills where the leachate will be contaminated by these compounds. The leachate can be dispersed to the surrounding environment, and it is therefore necessary to investigate and reduce the concentrations of PFAS in the landfill leachates. This study examined eight composite samples from eight different sample sites; the samples was originally from eight samples per sample site at a hazardous waste management facility collected at different time points, where 23 PFASs and extractable organic fluorine (EOF) were analysed. The concentrations of the total target PFASs ranged from 676-11 800 ng/L and the dominating compounds were short-chain perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids (PFSAs), where perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS) had the highest concentration in most samples. These results were compared with another on-going study that analysed the same sample sites with grab samples collected at different time points. The comparison was made on the average of three grab samples from each sample site and it showed that the results from the grab samples and composite samples were similar in terms of number of detected compounds but not exact in concentrations. Depending on the objective of the monitoring, it is possible to use composite samples to save money and time. The study also showed that 80% of the EOF in all samples, except one, were unidentified which implies that the water samples might consist of high amounts of PFASs not in the target list, or other fluorinated compounds with similar properties to PFAS, which needs to be investigated, monitored and might be reduced in the environment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:oru-86100 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Johansson, Felicia |
| Publisher | Örebro universitet, Institutionen för naturvetenskap och teknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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