Establishing presence of perfluoroalkyl substances in water

Abstract

The study was aimed at establishing presence of PFAS in different water samples and carry out comprehensive literature search to identify possible health and environmental challenges posed by presence of perfluoroalkyl substances in water basing on their concentrations in waterfrom two Namanve industrial area and National Water Treatment plant Ggaba. There are thousands of PFAS on the global market and for many of these there is little information publicly available regarding their potential to affect human health and the environment. They have been released to the environment through industrial manufacturing and through use and disposal of PFAS-containing products and are extremely persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic hence resulting in potential adverse effects on the environment and human health. Since they are persistent in the environment and resistant to typical environmental degradation processes, they are widely distributed across all trophic levels and are found in soil, air and water.Analysis of the samples entailed extraction of PFAS from the water matrixes by solid phase extractionon a WAX column. The instrumental analysis of the cleaned extracts was carried out by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) after which the target compounds were identified and quantified.Only 4 of the 19 PFAS were found to be in concentrations above detection limit of 0.008ng/L, bottled drinking water having none of the PFAS above detection limit. Well water, borehole water, NWSC tap water, NWSC feed and NWSC effluent were found to have 876.53, 56.10, 89.44, 71.27; 12.94, 0.03, 21.4, 31.1; 10.37, 0.01; 84.84, 13.33, 0.23, 2.24; 16.43,0.01,0.06 of PFTeDA, PFBA, L-PFBS, 6:2 FTSA respectively