Water
PFAS sources and fate in public drinking waters of North Carolina impacted by firefighting and textile operations
Dr. Detlef Knappe and Dr. Lee Ferguson
The water team research addresses the occurrence, sources, and fate of PFAS in public drinking water supplies. Specifically, this project has two main focuses:
- understanding the scope of aqueous film forming foam (AFFF)- related contamination in public water supply wells near fire stations and
- comprehensively assess sources, fate, and exposure to textile-derived PFAS precursors in the Cape Fear River watershed of North Carolina.
Dr. Knappe’s and Dr. Ferguson’s research testing methods include non-targeted analysis, suspect screening, and targeted analysis.
Benefit to North Carolina
The project will expand North Carolina’s knowledge on PFAS contamination in our public drinking water supplies related to firefighting foams and textile manufacturing. The results will help impacted communities identify avenues to reduce PFAS exposure and can be used by regulatory agencies to guide state response to this aspect of PFAS contamination. Additionally, the textile-derived precursor data will be beneficial to public utilities for management decisions regarding the protection of drinking source waters from PFAS impacts.
Adsorbable Organic Fluorine Measurement in NC Water
Dr. Mei Sun
Dr. Mei Sun’s research group will investigate the possible occurrence of unknown PFAS in North Carolina drinking water. In collaboration with the other Water team researchers, this group of investigators will analyze PFAS concentrations from North Carolina municipal drinking water sources using an additional PFAS testing method known as adsorbable organic fluorine (AOF) analysis.
AOF analysis is a surrogate analytical method to represent total PFAS concentrations in water samples. This analysis is a valuable complement to the quantification of individual PFAS structures, as AOF results include both known and unknown PFAS structures.
While other researchers on the Water team are responsible for non-targeted analysis, suspect screening, and targeted analysis in these samples, Dr. Sun’s research group will conduct the AOF analysis and provide result comparisons to reveal the possible occurrence of unknown PFAS structures.
Benefit to North Carolina
The results from this study will expand current knowledge on PFAS occurrence in North Carolina and help inform the public about the levels and specific PFAS in their drinking water sources. The comparison of AOF results with targeted analysis will reveal the possible existence of unknown PFAS in NC waters and provide direction for future research on the identification, toxicity evaluation, and treatment assessment for these emerging PFAS structures.