Perfluoropolyethers (PFPEs) are used in a remarkably large number of industrial applications including thin-film lubricants, greases, heat transfer fluids, cosmetics, and EPA-approved food contact paper coatings and are marketed for their chemical inertness. Although desired industrially, it is also the property of most environmental concern. The lack of literature concerning the environmental impact of these compounds suggests a need to assess and characterize their environmental fate and transport. This work describes efforts to develop methods to characterize, identify and quantify various congeners of PFPEs through chromatographic, mass spectral and nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. The PFPEs exhibited unusual behavior during ionization by ESI, suggesting the possibility of structural lability during analysis. A preliminary assessment of the environmental degradation of a PFPE-phosphate congener is also described, which showed rapid sorption to sewage sludge particulate matter and the possible presence of multiple PFPEs present in the technical product mixture used for analysis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/33398 |
| Date | 21 November 2012 |
| Creators | Di Lorenzo, Robert |
| Contributors | Mabury, Scott A. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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