PFAS: Appearing out of thin air?

Welcome to Thermo Fisher Scientific's 2022 Detection and Quantification of PFAS in Air, Water, Soil, and Food Packaging e-learning series. In the first event of our three-part eSeminar series, three leading experts in PFAS analysis will discuss pressing topics around the persistence of PFAS in air, including sampling and analytical technologies, regulatory development, and environmental remediation.

Global regulatory bodies are investigating for the prevalence of PFAS compounds due to their toxicity, persistence, and widespread use. Initially thought of as inert and potentially a wonder chemical, their usage in everyday products has been widespread, and it is estimated that there are now well over 6000 possible PFAS compounds. Human exposure to PFAS residues has been implicated in the incidence of cancer, obesity, endocrine system disruption, and other adverse health effects. This exposure can be traced back to their existence in food packaging material and food processing equipment, air, and plants- which accumulate PFAS when grown in PFAS-containing soil and/or water and can also be consumed by animals destined to enter the food chain. In this eSeminar series, we address critical considerations to help ensure your success in meeting the evolving needs for PFAS extraction and analysis.

Learning points

• Learn how alkaline hydrolysis allows for fast and complete conversion of FTOH-based side-chain polymers to free FTOHs and opens a way for quantitative analysis of FTOH precursors in textiles and other products like impregnation sprays
• Discover how products can result from incomplete PFAS destruction and the importance of non-targeted approaches in their analysis
• Learn how thermal desorption instrumentation coupled to triple quadrupole GC-MS can enable measurement of PFAS in air at trace levels

Presenter: Vladimir Nikiforov (Senior Scientist, Norwegian Institute for Air Research)

Dr. Vladimir Nikiforov graduated from st.Petersburg State University in 1986, got a degree in 1990 (“Synthesis of fluoroketones… for extraction of anions”) and continued with the same university doing research and teaching in Synthetic organic, Physical organic, Environmental chemistry until 2010. From 2010 to 2014 he was a head of laboratory of migration of POPs in the Center of Ecological Safety of the Russian Academy of Sciences and then joined NILU-Norwegian Institute for Air research. His current research interests include PFAS and other organofluorines, Non-target and suspect screening, QSAR, development of analytical methods for new pollutants and microplactics in al matrices, and in air samples in particular.

Presenter: Laura Miles (Senior Application Specialist, Markes International)

As senior application specialist in the thermal desorption business unit, Laura is responsible for developing new methods and testing Markes International’s suite of thermal desorber for new and emerging applications. Laura joined Markes International as a customer support specialist in 2014 before moving to work in application development. As part of her current role Laura works closely with key opinion leaders in collaborations across a variety of market areas and she is a specialist in environmental analysis, breathomics and defense and forensics.

Presenter: Stephen Jackson (Chemist, Environmental Protection Agency)

Stephen Jackson is a chemist in the Combustion Source Branch of the US EPA Office of Research and Development’s Center for Environmental Measurement & Modeling, Air Methods and Characterization Division. There he works to develop sampling and analytical methods for airborne PFAS with a focus on non-targeted analyses. Prior to joining the EPA in 2019, he worked as a research chemist for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Stephen received a BA in Chemistry from Hendrix College and a PhD in Chemistry from Vanderbilt University.