Compared to the already limited information on human health risks, even less is known about the exposure, hazards, and risks of PFAS in the environment. Consequently, recently established safe limits for these compounds in surface waters, soils, and sediments are preliminary, not based on ecotoxicological considerations, and in need of a better scientific underpinning. The aim of our PFAS research is, therefore, to accomplish reliable risk assessments for PFAS in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems based on an improved understanding of the drivers of their exposure and hazard. In this way, the environment will be protected from toxic PFAS insults while preventing substantial financial losses due to uncertainty-driven strict threshold limits.

Research projects

Since 2021, FAME, in collaboration with the VU University Amsterdam, has investigated the environmental fate and effects of PFAS. The project aims to provide detailed information on the occurrence of PFAS in different environmental compartments, both in terms of chemical composition (profile) and concentrations (total and (bio)available levels). This requires further standardization of analytical protocols combined with the extension of the available analytical standards. We aim to expand the currently limited spectrum of PFAS analyzed in biota and food web studies and to put emphasis on ecotoxicity testing of representatives of the different PFAS families while including chronic and multigeneration ecotoxicity studies on relevant ecological endpoints like growth and reproduction. To generate a mechanistic understanding and to allow for extrapolation to untested compounds, we will relate the environmental fate and ecotoxicological effects of PFAS to their molecular properties.

Open Technology Programme - TTW project (1-09-2021 – 31-11-2025)

Exposure, hazard and risk of PFAS in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems

Literature review

The first deliverable of the TTW project was a critical perspective that highlighted current developments and identified knowledge gaps and subsequent research needs that would contribute to a comprehensive environmental risk assessment for PFAS. To this end, the open literature and databases were consulted, which revealed that knowledge of the environmental fate of PFAS is based on the analysis of <1% of the compounds categorized as PFAS. Moreover, soils and suspended particulate matter remain largely understudied. The bioavailability, bioaccumulation, and food web transfer studies of PFAS also focus on a very limited number of compounds and are biased toward aquatic biota, predominantly fish, and less frequently aquatic invertebrates and macrophytes. The available ecotoxicity data showed that only a few PFAS have been well studied for their environmental hazards, and that PFAS ecotoxicity data are also strongly biased toward aquatic organisms. Ecotoxicity studies in the terrestrial environment are needed, as well as chronic, multigenerational, and community ecotoxicity research, in light of the persistency and bioaccumulation of PFAS. Finally, an urgent need to unravel the relationships among sorption, bioaccumulation, and ecotoxicity on the one hand and molecular descriptors of PFAS chemical structures and physicochemical properties on the other was identified, to allow predictions of exposure, bioaccumulation, and toxicity.

Relevant publications

Gkika, I. S., Xie, G., van Gestel, C. A., Ter Laak, T. L., Vonk, J. A., van Wezel, A. P., & Kraak, M. H. (2023). Research priorities for the environmental risk assessment of per‐and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS). Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.