Understanding the Movement of PFAS in the Environment

The North Carolina PFAS Testing Network is a consortium of researchers from North Carolina studying the effects of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the environment. The overarching goal of this group is to present their findings to regulators in an effort to change public policy to solve this issue (1). Ralph Mead, the lead investigator of the Mead Group at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, is working with the North Carolina PFAS Testing Network, contributing towards the organization’s aims (1).

In the below video segment, we asked Mead and his team about the information gaps in understanding the transport of PFAS.

Ralph Mead: There's not a good understanding of the production of PFAS. How much is being made each year? How much PFAS is being used in our everyday life, and ultimately, where does that PFAS go? I think to understand the movement fluxes of PFAS, you've got to have a good handle on your input functions. I don't think that's known very well right now. There are some estimates, but they’re not known very well. I think also some of the work with isotopes in understanding how PFAS moves in the environment in all the compartments, whether it's air, soil, sediment, and water, there are some fundamental geochemical uncertainties, like partitioning, coefficients, things like that. If you're going to start to look at transport fate, you've got to have that information.

Paul Wojtal: PFAS is a class of more than 15,000 chemicals, and we've studied probably about 70 of them well. But I haven't seen anything that suggests, one way or another, whether there is some sort of correlation relationship between the state and transport of one PFAS compound and the transport of another PFAS compound. And so, I think there are a lot of assumptions being made out there.

Ralph Mead: I will also add to that, you know, just the chemistry, the organofluorine chemistry, is very complicated and very rich. And I think understanding that process from the manufacturing, as you understand how the chemicals are produced, will ultimately let you understand their environmental occurrence and how they transform.

This interview clip is the fourth part of our conversation with Ralph Mead and his group at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and the North Carolina PFAS Testing Network. You can see the earlier interview segments in the literature (1–3).

References

1. Wetzel, W. Inside the Laboratory: The Mead Group at UNC Wilmington and the North Carolina PFAS Testing Network. LCGC International. Available at: https://www.chromatographyonline.com/view/inside-the-laboratory-the-mead-group-at-unc-wilmington-and-the-north-carolina-pfas-testing-network (accessed 2025-04-08).
2. Wetzel, W. The Challenges of Characterizing PFAS in the Environment. LCGC International. Available at: https://www.chromatographyonline.com/view/the-challenges-of-characterizing-pfas-in-the-environment (accessed 2025-04-08).
3. Wetzel, W. The Interactions Between Bacterial Communities and PFAS. LCGC International. Available at: https://www.chromatographyonline.com/view/the-interactions-between-bacterial-communities-and-pfas (accessed 2025-04-08).