Identification of Novel Hydrogen-Substituted Polyfluoroalkyl Ether Sulfonates in Environmental Matrices near Metal-Plating Facilities
Open accessAbstract
Environmental occurrence and behaviors of 6:2 chlorinated polyfluoroalkyl ether sulfonate (Cl-6:2 PFESA, with trade name F-53B) have been receiving increased attention recently. Nevertheless, its potential fates under diversified conditions remain concealed. In this study, susceptibility of Cl-6:2 PFESA to reductive dehalogenation was tested in an anaerobic super-reduced cyanocobalamin assay. A rapid transformation of dosed Cl-6:2 PFESA was observed, with a hydrogen-substituted polyfluoroalkyl ether sulfonate (1H-6:2 PFESA) identified as the predominant product by a nontarget screening workflow. With the aid of laboratory-purified standards, hydrogen-substituted PFESA analogues (i.e., 1H-6:2 and 1H-8:2 PFESA) were further found in river water and sediment samples collected from two separate regions near metal-plating facilities. Geometric mean concentrations of 560 pg/L (river water) and 11.1 pg/g (sediment) for 1H-6:2 PFESA and 11.0 pg/L (river water) and 7.69 pg/g (sediment) for 1H-8:2 PFESA were measured, and both analytes consisted average compositions of 1% and 0.1% among the 18 monitored per- and polyfluoroalkyl sulfonate and carboxylate pollutants, respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first to report existence of polyfluoroalkyl sulfonates with both hydrogen and ether functional group in the environment.
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6:2H-PFESA is a transformation product of 6:2Cl-PFESA and has been detected in river water and wastewater.
“This compound was a transformation product of 6:2Cl-PFESA (Lin et al., 2017) and had been detected in river water (Lin et al., 2017; Pan et al., 2018) and wastewater (Wang et al., 2020).”
From Molecular characteristics of emerging perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and dissolved organic matter (DOM) in surface waters around fluorine-related industries in a Chinese Megacity (2025) · cites this paper as Lin et al., 2017
Mixed-mode weak anion exchange (WAX) and hydrophilic-lipophilic balanced reversed-phase (HLB) are the two common off-line SPE sorbent materials used.
“Mixed-mode weak anion exchange (WAX) [35e37,42] and hydrophilic-lipophilic balanced reversed-phase (HLB) [38] are the two common off-line SPE sorbent materials used.”
TOF, Orbitrap, and FTICR are three HRMS technologies already proven as useful tools in PFAS discovery.
“TOF [29e32,35,39e41], Orbitrap [34,37,38,42] and Fouriertransform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) [30] are three HRMS technologies already proven as useful tools in PFAS discovery.”
Liu et al. [38] detected highly complex MS/MS spectra for some PFAS classes in fish liver extracts, which likely indicate isomer coelutions.
“For example, Liu et al. [38] detected highly complex MS/MS spectra for some PFAS classes in fish liver extracts, which likely indicate isomer coelutions.”
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- Authors
- Lin, Y., Ruan, T., Liu, A., & Jiang, G.
- Affiliations
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Ruan, Ting
- Venue
- Environmental Science & Technology
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2017-09-27
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 20
- Pages
- 11588-11596
- ISSN
- 0013-936X (ISSN-L)
- 1520-5851
- OpenAlex
- W2755869645
- Cited by
- 114
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 7
- FWCI
- 4.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- ir.rcees.ac.cn
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-sa
- Locations
- Environmental Science & Technology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional knowledge base (Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) (submittedVersion)
- Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences OpenIR (Chinese Academy of Sciences) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Funders
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (21361140359, 21577151, 21621064, 21622705)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances research
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Toxic Organic Pollutants Impact
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Pesticide and Herbicide Environmental Studies
- Keywords
- reductive dehalogenation, river pollution, sediment contamination, non-target screening, environmental occurrence
- MeSH terms
- Environmental Monitoring, Ether, Ethers, Fluorocarbons, Hydrogen, Metals, Water Pollutants, Chemical
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