Suspect Screening for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Firefighter Turnout Gear

Emerging Environmental Applications for High Resolution Mass Spectrometry
Oral Presentation

Prepared by A. Maizel, A. Thompson, J. Reiner, A. Rodowa, B. Place, R. Davis
National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Dr, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 20899, United States


Contact Information: [email protected]; 301-975-5078

ABSTRACT

Firefighter turnout gear has been found to contain numerous PFAS, however, bulk fluorine measurements reveal that a large fraction of the PFAS in turnout gear is not quantified by targeted mass spectrometry. To identify a broader swath of PFAS than those quantified by targeted mass spectrometry analysis, we developed a suspect screening workflow using open-source tools to rapidly screen firefighter turnout gear extracts for over 4000 PFAS and identified numerous PFAS which were not identified by previously reported targeted analysis. Additionally, we demonstrate the importance of searching for other charge states than [M-H]- with negative mode electrospray by identifying multiple PFAS which lack functional groups that are commonly ionized in negative mode electrospray but are found to be present as [M+acetate]- adducts. Compound annotation is demonstrated with the Mass Spectral Match for Non-Targeted Analysis (MSMatch) application which was developed at NIST as part of the Data Infrastructure for Mass Spectrometry (DIMSpec) project.