ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2025
High organofluorine concentrations in municipal wastewater affect downstream drinking water supplies for millions of Americans.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) and Metals in Wild and Farmed Oysters of a Minimally Developed Coastal Region in the Southeastern United States.ACS ES&T water · 2026Article
- Trifluoroacetic Acid (TFA) Exceeds All Other Extractable Organofluorine in Drinking Water from Eastern Massachusetts, United States.Environmental science & technology letters · 2026Article
- A Liquid-Liquid Extraction Method for Measuring Ultrashort PFCAs and Longer-Chain PFAS in Water.Analytical chemistry · 2026Article
- The hidden fluorine: a critical review of analytical methods for unmasking PFAS and closing fluorine mass balance in environmental samples.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2026Review
- Presence of Legacy and Emerging PFAS in Human Liver Specimens Banked in the United States from 2000 to 2024.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- Elucidating Unknown Organofluorine in Municipal Wastewater: A Mass Balance Approach including Fluorinated Pharmaceuticals.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- Impact of regulatory actions to establish maximum contaminant levels on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in New Jersey public water systems.Environment international · 2026Article
- Large declines in organofluorine contamination indicated by subarctic marine mammal tissues.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS): History, Current Concerns, and Future Outlook.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Key developments in fluorinated heterocycles.Future medicinal chemistry · 2025Article
- Comprehensive Evaluation of the Analytical Efficiency of Combustion Ion Chromatography for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Biological and Environmental Matrices.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- Pharmacovigilance and bioethics: the importance of a neglected relationship.Frontiers in drug safety and regulation · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Wastewater receives per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from diverse consumer and industrial sources, and discharges are known to be a concern for drinking water quality. The PFAS family includes thousands of potential chemical structures containing organofluorine moieties. Exposures to a few well-studied PFAS, mainly perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAA), have been associated with increased risk of many adverse health outcomes, prompting federal drinking water regulations for six compounds in 2024. Here, we find that the six regulated PFAS (mean = 7 to 8%) and 18 measured PFAA (mean = 11 to 21%) make up only a small fraction of the extractable organofluorine (EOF) in influent and effluent from eight large municipal wastewater treatment facilities. Most of the EOF in influent (75%) and effluent (62%) consists of mono- and polyfluorinated pharmaceuticals. The treatment technology and sizes of the treatment facilities in this study are similar to those serving 70% of the US population. Despite advanced treatment technologies, the maximum EOF removal efficiency among facilities in this work was <25%. Extrapolating our measurements to other large facilities across the United States results in a nationwide EOF discharge estimate of 1.0 to 2.8 million moles F y
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