TY - GEN A1 - Vogel, Christian T1 - Fluorine K-edge X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy as a novel tool for the characterization of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in soils and sludges N2 - Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been used extensively in the past because of their inert chemical character and resistance to degradation by environmental influences. Since the beginning of their commercial use, PFAS have been widely exposed to the environment by application of PFAS in consumer products or as foaming agent in firefighting foams, thus several cases of contaminated soils sites have been reported. Since the number of known PFAS already exceeds 4700, their characterization and direct analysis is challenging given the current available techniques. Here, we introduce the novel fluorine (F) K-edge X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy as a tool to analyze PFAS and inorganic fluorine compounds in contaminated soils and sewage sludges. While F K-edge bulk-XANES spectroscopy provide us information on the overall fluorine bonding in a sample micro X-ray fluorescence (XRF) in combination with F K-edge micro-XANES spectroscopy can also detect minor fluorine compounds and PFAS hotspots in investigated soils and sludges. Additionally, we used the combustion ion chromatography (CIC) to analyze the total amount of all PFAS as a sum parameter (extractable organic fluoride: EOF) in soils and sewage sludges. During combustion in the CIC, the PFAS in the sample get destroyed at temperatures of approx. 1000 °C and converted in inorganic fluorides that subsequently gets quantified by ion chromatography. Thus, for the first time we successfully combined F K-edge XANES spectroscopy and CIC as analytical tools to detect and quantify PFAS contaminants in soils and sewage sludges. T2 - SETAC Europe CY - Online meeting DA - 03.05.2021 KW - Sewage sludge KW - Combustion ion chromatography KW - Soil KW - X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy PY - 2021 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/52563 AN - OPUS4-52563 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany