5 ms·

I don’t get it. How can it be in rain water? Does it have the same boiling point as water?

• mythrwy 4y ago
  Agree. Was hoping to see the mechanism of how it got in the rainwater. Fluff article.
• frazbin 4y ago
  Doesn't need to have the same boiling point, just needs to have some partial vapor pressure at 1 atm and be miscible with water. One big mechanism for dispersal is sea spray aerosols, probs because pfas chemicals have fun surface chemistries. Concentration of pfas in sea sprays can be 10,000x concentration in bulk seawater
  • eurasiantiger 4y ago
    So that nice smell of ocean air is actually poisonous?
  • bergenty 4y ago
    PFAS has a boiling point of 189C. I don’t think many things naturally get this hot so it seems unlikely.
• samus 4y ago
  It could also stick to dust particles that happen to float around. Especially in cities, I usually try to avoid exposure to rainwater for the first few hours of rain, because it clears the air of a lot of gunk (heavy metals, exhaust gases, pollen, spores, forever chemicals, ...) that I don't exactly want to have near my body.
  • bergenty 4y ago
    If this is true then we’re just breathing it in all the time because it’s in the air. Sounds like that should be a bigger headline.
    • samus 4y ago
      Yes, that's a f*king big problem as well, similar to how it was with leaded gasoline! Microplastice are floating around as well, btw.