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PFCA Article Testing
Citation:
Liu, X., Ken Krebs, R. Pope, Z. Guo, AND N. Roache. PFCA Article Testing. US Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH, 2012.
Impact/Purpose:
EPA's PFOA Stewardship Program calls for a reduction of facility emissions to all media of PFOA, precursor chemicals and related higher homologue chemicals and product content levels of these chemicals by 95 percent by 2010, and to work toward the elimination of these chemicals from emissions and products by 2015. The Phase I report (EPA ) establkished the baseline data for PFCA contents in articles of commerce. This report (phase II) reports the changes of PFCA contents in selected articles of commerce between 2007 and 2011. The data sill support the Significant New Use Rules (SNURs) for long-chain PFCAs under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
Description:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established an ongoing effort to quantify possible changes in levels of perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) in articles of commerce (AOCs). Temporal trends in the concentrations of selected PFCs, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and other perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs), in 35 AOCs were measured from the year of 2007 through 2011. The AOC samples that were collected included carpet, commercial carpet-care liquids, household carpet / fabric-care liquids, treated apparel, treated home textiles, treated non-woven medical garments, floor waxes, food-contact paper, membranes for apparel, and thread-sealant tapes. They were purchased from retail outlets in the United States between March 2007 and September 2011. Two to five AOCs from each of the ten categories were monitored. Depending on the market availability, products were collected for two to four data points in a span of four years. The perfluorocarboxylic acid (PFCA) contents in AOCs have shown an overall downward trend as the fluorochemical industry has reformulated their PFC products. However, PFOA (C8) is still on the market for many uses. Fourteen AOC samples were analyzed to determine the amounts of perfluoroalkyl sulfonates (PFAS) they contained. The limited data show the pronounced increase of perfluoro-butane sulfonate (PFBS-C4), an alternative to perfluorooctanoic sulfonate (PFOS), in the samples and no obvious tendencies for change over the monitored period for short-chain PFCA (sum of C4 to C7) versus long-chain PFCA (sum of C8 to C12) were observed. A longer and wider range of monitoring will be required to confirm an observed trend.