Particle-Induced Gamma-ray Emission (PIGE) as a Novel Detection Method for PFAS in Personal Care Products

Per-
and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been widely used in industry
for their well-known water-repellent qualities and surfactant properties.  Because of the environmental persistence of PFASs, their ability to bioaccumulate, and their suspected human
toxicity, new methods to identify these chemicals at trace levels in personal
care products (such as cosmetics) are needed. Particle induced gamma-ray
emission (PIGE) spectroscopy is an established ion beam analysis technique that
has been used to quantitatively measure light elements in diverse target
materials including water, soil, fabric, and paper samples.  Since the total fluorine measured by PIGE in
other sampling media has correlated well with the organofluorine
content, PIGE was further employed to act as a screening process for PFASs in personal
care products such as mascaras, skin and lip care products, eye shadows,
eyeliners, and make-up primers.   Subsequent experiments with cosmetic samples from a range of brands demonstrate PIGE to be an
inexpensive, rapid, and non-destructive method for total fluorine analysis, which can
be adapted to detect environmentally relevant PFASs in care products.