Perfluoroalkyl (PFAS) substances testing services

• Characteristics of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances:

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are defined as fluorinated substance that contain at least one fully fluorinated methyl (—CF₃) or methylene carbon (—CF₂—) atom. According to the report published by OECD, the species of PFASs are more than 4700. PFASs are wildly utilized as a solvent, surface coating, or cleaning agent due to its characteristics of excellent stability, water resistance, oil resistance, and friction resistance. Meanwhile, PFASs is also utilized as the reaction agent during the production process of fluorinated plastics and rubbers. PFASs have extensive applications, it probably can be found in textiles, package materials, lubricants, refrigerants, electronics, and building materials.

However, PFASs with excellent stability are hardly decomposed in the environment. Once PFASs release into the environment, its will widely distribute throughout the environment and gradually accumulate in the environment or living organisms. According to recent research, the accumulation of PFASs in human organisms cause the heathy damage of human body, including liver damage, cancer, miscarriage, and fetal malformation. Therefore, governments have published relevant regulations to restrict the use of PFASs.

• Restricted actions of PFASs from governments:

Since the environment and organism damage caused by PFASs is discovered, relevant regulations have been published by governments to restrict the use of PFASs. Partial European and American regulations are listed as below for your reference:

• Global regulations for restricting PFASs are not listed entirely in the above table, the listed regulations are only for your reference.
• The complied information within this document is for reference only, for details, please refer to the original regulation. In case of discrepancy or dispute, the text within latest version of original regulation released shall prevail.

• SGS C&P / RSTS provide services for analyzing PFASs:

National regulations are published gradually by many countries for restricting PFASs, the regulated PFASs and its thresholds are dependent on the national regulation. However, different regulated scopes in different national regulations cause the difficulties for manufacturers to evaluate whether their products comply with regulatory requirements. For helping our clients, SGS provide below solutions: