drinking water. Several PFAS have multiple toxic effects, particularly affecting liver, kidney, thyroid, and the immune

Overview

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Key numbers

The worker extracted the full PDF text with layout preservation twice and compared extraction hashes before commit. The following lines are copied from numeric/table-bearing regions of the PDF and retain the source units and wording where legible:

ers, e.g., contained up to 680 mg/kg dry matter (dm) e.g. as wetting agents, although PFOA is now being
inflammable liquids. tively. Meanwhile, about 30% of all newly approved
as a substance group is meant to prevent the substitution tact materials became available (17). The OECD pub-
equally critical, but less well studied PFAS (“regrettable and varnishes (44), as well as alternatives to PFAS-con-
uct streams are problematic when waste products are ods to remove a range of more than 160 relevant PFAS
cases, the sum of 17 PFAS exceeded 1 µg/L. completely; however, validated studies on this are also
from spray drift (83, 84). Meanwhile, PFAS levels in soils and waters, in organ-
than 50% (86). In a recent review, Kurwadkar et al. pre- PFAS, which have been less studied and are used as sub-
Scheffknecht were still able to measure 0.05 to 0.1 µg/L of individual determinations (113, 114). The transfer of
from the Belgian North Sea, Byns et al. (106) found mean
Teunen et al. (118) measured median PFAS concentra-
environment (3) cannot be considered suitable alterna-
in mussels. Rüdel et al. (119) investigated mean PFOS
by the University of Athens (see Table 1) (122). Robuck
shorter the carbon chain the higher the mobility. When of magnitude higher than in their diet (see Table 1) (122).
found at 90% of the monitoring wells (113). Zhao et al. In contrast to bioconcentration in aquatic animals and
2.2, 1.4 and 3.7 µg/L and C3–C5 perfluoroalkyl sulfonic tors (BAF) soil → plant (Σ PFAS) were seen to be as high
acids with 22, 4.9 and 25 µg/L, respectively, for the same as 48 for the green plant parts above-ground (141, 146).
Bioconcentration and biomagnification in the food PFHpA (perfluoroheptanoic acid, < 17–440 ng/kg, n = 16
25,000). Tal and Vogs determined the BCF fish(total)/ concentrations of 0.5 µg/L over a period of 28 days
930, PFHxS 870 und PFOS 13,200) (139). Studies from acid) (10 µg/L) both male and female zebrafish showed
tration via exchange with the surrounding medium and of larvae and juveniles are specified as 10 µg/L PFDA
biomagnification via consumption of food (106, 118). or 100 µg/L PFTrDA and for adult fish as 1000 µg/L
only 10 µg/L fluorotelomer alcohol 8:2 FTOH for a caused reduced viability (154).
were observed, that at 30 µg/L resulted in significant have effective detoxification mechanisms; therefore, in
to a 30% decrease in hatching rate (152). After 6 days concentrations (PFOS, PFOA, N-EtFOSE (N-ethyl per-
showed skeletal deformation of the larvae, at 30 µg/L kg soil (173).
acid) at concentrations of just a few µg/L and below in the soil for 70 days (174), whereas photosynthesis in
(154–157). Development of larval Mediterranean mus- cucumbers was reduced by 0.2 mg/kg PFOA (175). Con-
sels is also impaired by PFOA and PFOS when acutely centrations of 6 mg/kg PFOA or greater disrupted root
(48 h) exposed at levels as low as 0.1 µg/L (158). growth in sorghum, whereas 50 mg/kg are required for
boxylic acids) on green algae (mostly Chlorella sp. and concentration ranges of 40–400 mg/kg (98).
Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata). The EC50 values range In summary, numerous publications report on diverse
from about 0.3 mg/L PFUnDA (perfluoroundecanoic aquatoxic effects of PFAS in the lower µg/L range, in
acid) to ca. 260 mg/L PFBA and 1100 mg/L 5H 4:1 FTOH some cases even lower. PFAS of different structure and
At concentrations of 2–10 µg/L PFBS, PFOA and PFOS been studied. For the majority of the several thousand
was observed in bumble bees at 100 µg/L (BAF = 28) omer alcohols and acids or fluorinated oxo carboxylic
yfluorooctane sulfonic acid) at 10 µg/L, most severely by be responsible for the pro-carcinogenic effects of PFAS
American bullfrog tadpoles was observed at 144 µg/L PFAS are now not only ubiquitous in the environment,
(167). After 2 months exposure to 100 µg/L PFOS after they are found in the blood of almost all humans living
degeneration (168); at only 0.1 µg/L PFOS an increase in fetuses (liver, lung, heart, CNS, fatty tissue) (see “Human
Table 2. Particularly relevant data are: the liver has been described in detail by Jin et al. (198).

Methods (brief)

in every third sample, von Abercron (18) discovered tainers (28).
collected separately and subsequently recycled, e.g., of is given in (65). For anionic PFAS like PFOA und PFOS,
samples from municipal landfills in Germany showed air (68). In 2013 Schlummer et al. measured the concen-
collected and may be pretreated, e.g. by reverse osmosis, carpets. The concentrations were three orders of magni-
aerosol above aeration tanks of a sewage treatment plant ates, even in “uncontaminated” samples. Entry via the
Table 1 PFOS-concentration in biota samples from the German
were sampled for 21 different PFAS, contamination was European top predators in studies on 56 PFAS (140).
also been detected in honey samples, most commonly
chains of 26 samples), occasionally PFOA, PFNA, PFDA and
study (233). These studies indicate that increased atten- specifies limits of quantification (LOQ) to be applied. If
50% of the samples studied. Based on these data, if the Lake Constance (perch, whitefish, tench), levels between
examined 46 samples from 13 drinking water supplies in increasing, if R1234yf continues to be used in automotive
whereby the anions of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), trifluo- samples from seven sites in Germany from February 2018
onic acid (PFPrA) were detected in almost all samples. It tion of 0.21 µg/L, resulting in a wet deposition of 68 tons
measured TFA in drinking water samples with an aver- drinking water (30). A yearly overall input of 170 kg is
responding to a daily dose of about 38 mg/kg bw (male) food and human samples have been well established since
possible liver damage, already at drinking water concen- tography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS).
with a lower limit of quantification (LOQ) of 10 ng/L

Implications

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Identity check: DOI, raw handle, candidate cite-key, and SHA-256 were compared against existing wiki/sources/ pages before creation.
Full-PDF read: pdftotext -layout was run on the full PDF twice; extracted text hashes matched before the page was written.
Numeric verification: numeric/table-bearing lines were selected mechanically from the verified extraction and preserved without unit conversion or rounding.
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Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.

Commit	Date	Change	Description
b01ec52c	2026-08-04	major	2 sections added
d49e450f	2026-08-03	major	5 sections added; narrative text revised