Occurrence of a "forever chemical" in the atmosphere above pristine Amazon Forest

Ivan Kourtchev; Bruna G Sebben; Sebastian Brill; Cybelli Barbosa; Bettina Weber; Rosaria R Ferreira; Flavio Augusto Farias D'Oliveira; Cléo Q Dias-Junior; Olalekan A M Popoola; Jonathan Williams; Christopher Pöhlker; Ricardo H M Godoi

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173918

Occurrence of a "forever chemical" in the atmosphere above pristine Amazon Forest

Ivan Kourtchev, Bruna G Sebben, Sebastian Brill, Cybelli Barbosa, Bettina Weber, Rosaria R Ferreira, Flavio Augusto Farias D'Oliveira, Cléo Q Dias-Junior, Olalekan A M Popoola, Jonathan Williams, Christopher Pöhlker, Ricardo H M Godoi

Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often referred to as "forever chemicals", are a class of man-made, extremely stable chemicals, which are widely used in industrial and commercial applications. Exposure to some PFAS is now known to be detrimental to human health. By virtue of PFAS long residence times, they are widely detected in the environment, including remote locations such as the Arctics, where the origin of the PFAS is poorly understood. It has been suggested that PFAS may be transported through contaminated waters, leading to accumulation in coastal areas, where they can be aerosolised via sea spray, thereby extending their geographical distribution far beyond their original source regions. The aim of this work is to investigate, for the first time, whether "forever chemicals" could be transported to areas considered to be pristine, far from coastal sites. This study was performed at the Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO), a unique remote site situated in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, where a restricted PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), was observed with concentrations reaching up to 2 pg/m3. A clear trend of increasing concentration with sampling height was observed and air masses from the south over Manaus had the highest concentrations. Atmospheric lifetime estimations, removal mechanisms supported by measurements at two heights (320 and 42 m above the rainforest), and concentration spikes indicated a long-range transport of PFOA to pristine Amazon rainforest. Potential sources, including industrial activities in urban areas, were explored, and historical fire management practices considered. This research presents the first measurements of PFAS in the atmosphere of Amazon rainforest. Remarkably, even in this remote natural environment, appreciable levels of PFAS can be detected. This study provides valuable insights into the long-range transport of the anthropogenic "forever chemical" into a remote natural ecosystem and should raise awareness of potential environmental implications.

Original language	English
Article number	173918
Number of pages	8
Journal	Science of the Total Environment
Volume	944
Early online date	10 Jun 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173918
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 10 Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited..

Funder

The authors gratefully acknowledge the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) for the provision of the HYSPLIT transport and dispersion model and/or READY website ( https://www.ready.noaa.gov ) used in this publication. The authors would like to thank Sam Towers (former laboratory technician) for providing lab support at Coventry University. This research has been funded by the Bundesministerium f\u00FCr Bildung und Forschung (BMBF contracts 01LB1001A , 01LK1602B , and 01LK2101B ), the Brazilian Minist\u00E9rio da Ci\u00EAncia, Tecnologia e Inova\u00E7\u00E3o (MCTI/FINEP contract 01.11.01248.00 ), the Max Planck Society , and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient\u00EDfico e Tecnol\u00F3gico (CNPq, Brazil). For the operation of the ATTO site, we acknowledge the support by the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amaz\u00F4nia (INPA), the Amazon State University (UEA), the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment (LBA), FAPEAM, the Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustent\u00E1vel do Uatum\u00E3 (SDS/CEUC/RDS-Uatum\u00E3), and the Max Planck Society. BW and CB would like to acknowledge funding of the FWF (funding no. P 36052-B ). CQDJ acknowledges the support from CNPq (Processes, 307530/2022-1 ). Particularly, we would like to thank all people involved in the technical, logistical, and scientific support of ATTO.

Keywords

Aerosol
Emerging pollutants
LC-MS
PFAS
PFOA
Perfluorooctanoic acid

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Pollution
Waste Management and Disposal
Environmental Engineering
Environmental Chemistry

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173918Licence: CC BY

Kourtchev2014VoRFinal published version, 2.1 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

Kourtchev, I., Sebben, B. G., Brill, S., Barbosa, C., Weber, B., Ferreira, R. R., D'Oliveira, F. A. F., Dias-Junior, C. Q., Popoola, O. A. M., Williams, J., Pöhlker, C., & Godoi, R. H. M. (2024). Occurrence of a "forever chemical" in the atmosphere above pristine Amazon Forest. Science of the Total Environment, 944, Article 173918. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173918

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abstract = "Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often referred to as {"}forever chemicals{"}, are a class of man-made, extremely stable chemicals, which are widely used in industrial and commercial applications. Exposure to some PFAS is now known to be detrimental to human health. By virtue of PFAS long residence times, they are widely detected in the environment, including remote locations such as the Arctics, where the origin of the PFAS is poorly understood. It has been suggested that PFAS may be transported through contaminated waters, leading to accumulation in coastal areas, where they can be aerosolised via sea spray, thereby extending their geographical distribution far beyond their original source regions. The aim of this work is to investigate, for the first time, whether {"}forever chemicals{"} could be transported to areas considered to be pristine, far from coastal sites. This study was performed at the Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO), a unique remote site situated in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, where a restricted PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), was observed with concentrations reaching up to 2 pg/m3. A clear trend of increasing concentration with sampling height was observed and air masses from the south over Manaus had the highest concentrations. Atmospheric lifetime estimations, removal mechanisms supported by measurements at two heights (320 and 42 m above the rainforest), and concentration spikes indicated a long-range transport of PFOA to pristine Amazon rainforest. Potential sources, including industrial activities in urban areas, were explored, and historical fire management practices considered. This research presents the first measurements of PFAS in the atmosphere of Amazon rainforest. Remarkably, even in this remote natural environment, appreciable levels of PFAS can be detected. This study provides valuable insights into the long-range transport of the anthropogenic {"}forever chemical{"} into a remote natural ecosystem and should raise awareness of potential environmental implications.",

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AU - Weber, Bettina

AU - Ferreira, Rosaria R

AU - D'Oliveira, Flavio Augusto Farias

AU - Dias-Junior, Cléo Q

AU - Popoola, Olalekan A M

AU - Williams, Jonathan

AU - Pöhlker, Christopher

AU - Godoi, Ricardo H M

N1 - © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited..

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N2 - Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often referred to as "forever chemicals", are a class of man-made, extremely stable chemicals, which are widely used in industrial and commercial applications. Exposure to some PFAS is now known to be detrimental to human health. By virtue of PFAS long residence times, they are widely detected in the environment, including remote locations such as the Arctics, where the origin of the PFAS is poorly understood. It has been suggested that PFAS may be transported through contaminated waters, leading to accumulation in coastal areas, where they can be aerosolised via sea spray, thereby extending their geographical distribution far beyond their original source regions. The aim of this work is to investigate, for the first time, whether "forever chemicals" could be transported to areas considered to be pristine, far from coastal sites. This study was performed at the Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO), a unique remote site situated in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, where a restricted PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), was observed with concentrations reaching up to 2 pg/m3. A clear trend of increasing concentration with sampling height was observed and air masses from the south over Manaus had the highest concentrations. Atmospheric lifetime estimations, removal mechanisms supported by measurements at two heights (320 and 42 m above the rainforest), and concentration spikes indicated a long-range transport of PFOA to pristine Amazon rainforest. Potential sources, including industrial activities in urban areas, were explored, and historical fire management practices considered. This research presents the first measurements of PFAS in the atmosphere of Amazon rainforest. Remarkably, even in this remote natural environment, appreciable levels of PFAS can be detected. This study provides valuable insights into the long-range transport of the anthropogenic "forever chemical" into a remote natural ecosystem and should raise awareness of potential environmental implications.

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Occurrence of a "forever chemical" in the atmosphere above pristine Amazon Forest

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funder

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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