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Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in commercial composts, garden soils, and potting mixes of Australia

journal contribution
posted on 2024-11-02, 19:06 authored by Anithadevi Sivaram, Panneerselvan Logeshwaran, Aravind Surapaneni, Elliot Lee, Kurunthachalam Kannan, Mallavarapu Megharaj
In developing and developed countries, urban gardening has increasingly become an integral part of local food systems for good quality produce, for enhanced urban health and sustainability. There are few gardens with naturally perfect soils for growing plants. However, the soils with poor texture and fewer nutrients can be improved by different types of organic amendments such as composts, garden soils and organic potting mixes that are commercially available in the consumer markets worldwide to promote healthy plant growth. In this study, we assessed 19 different commercially available composts, garden soils, and potting mixes for the presence of 38 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The total (Ʃ38) PFAS in the samples ranged between 1.26 to 11.84 µg kg−1 (dry weight). The total concentration of perfluorinated carboxylic acids (ƩPFCAs) was higher than that of perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids (PFSAs) in all products. The total oxidizable precursor assay (TOPA) was applied in the analysis of composts and potting mixes, which revealed an increase in short-chain ƩPFCAs concentrations ranging from 0.48 to 7.63 µg kg−1, which suggested the transformation of PFCAs precursors to short-chain PFCAs. The measured concentrations of short-chain PFCAs after TOPA in the soil substrates have the potential to contribute to plant uptake and food chain transfer of PFAS to humans due to their high mobility.

History

Journal

Environmental Advances

Volume

7

Number

100174

Start page

1

End page

8

Total pages

8

Publisher

Elsevier

Place published

United Kingdom

Language

English

Copyright

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.

Former Identifier

2006113776

Esploro creation date

2022-10-20

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