Location: Water Management and Conservation Research
Project Number: 2020-13000-005-010-I
Project Type: Interagency Reimbursable Agreement
Start Date: Jul 31, 2022
End Date: Aug 31, 2026
Objective:
USDA needs to be able to understand Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) fate throughout the food production process so that best practices and treatments can be developed. Because the PFAS action levels are at the limit of current analytical techniques it is important that USDA (ARS) has instrumentation that is dedicated to PFAS quantification so that cross contamination from other analyses that may contain trace amounts of PFAS does not occur. Currently to switch instrumentation to perform PFAS analysis requires up to 3 weeks to clean and remove all traces of PFAS. This decontamination step puts considerable strain on the throughput of the instrument. Thus, a dedicated PFAS instrument will allow sample throughput to more than double by eliminating significant downtime.
Approach:
NRCS will provide funding for the purchase of a new instrument. ARS will provide up to 1000 sample injections a year at no charge to NRCS. ARS will also provide a workshop for interested NRCS scientists in year 3 at ALARC focused on PFAS in soil and water sytems to foster collaborative research on PFAS.
