To Örebro University

oru.seÖrebro University Publications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Known and unknown bioaccumulating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in pilot whales
Örebro University, School of Science and Technology.
2020 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Per- and- polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are widely used in commercial and industrial products and leach into the environment from different applications. PFASs poses an issue to both wildlife and humans because of different toxic properties. Different PFASs have been found to effect different hormones, are possibly carcinogenic, or can affect metabolic function. Many initiatives have been started by countries, organisations, and companies to prevent PFASs from ending up in the environment. Aquatic environments are a sink for PFASs, and much research has been done on the marine environment and its residents to investigate the effects of these substances. In earlier research, the need for a time-line perspective combined with both a total fluorine analysis and mass spectrometry analysis has been pointed out. This study's objective was to investigate how the concentrations of known and unknown bioaccumulating organic fluorinated substances in pilot whales are evolving over time. The results show fluctuating levels of PFASs for the different whales, making it hard to view any trends. There is a pattern of the unknown organic fluorine, that is increasing after 2009 when the phase-out of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) happened. The highest amount of unknown fluorine is 77% in one of the samples. Short-chain PFASs seems to be a good short-term solution as a replacement for the long-chain PFASs but could pose a threat over a longer time perspective. Both pilot whales and humans risk getting high concentrations of PFASs through biomagnification, the acceptable daily intake (ADI) that are in place regarding PFASs should possibly be on total organic fluorine (TOF) instead, due to the high percentage of unknown organic fluorine.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. , p. 30
National Category
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-86105OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-86105DiVA, id: diva2:1472362
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2020-10-01 Created: 2020-10-01 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(965 kB)277 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 965 kBChecksum SHA-512
dd853cdbc21ead27fc1a6895891ef5f8c28268c9058f7eb15e19c268ad484f938806add31eec28439a3c4ca174e803a07944b757621e3fd516ce86b755d74804
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
School of Science and Technology
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 277 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 373 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf