Properties
The carboxylate "head" of PFOA is hydrophilic while the fluorocarbon tail is hydrophobic and lipophobic. The "tail" is hydrophobic due to being non-polar and lipophobic because fluorocarbons are less susceptible to the London dispersion force than hydrocarbons. PFOA is an ideal surfactant because it can lower the surface tension of water more than hydrocarbon surfactants while possessing exceptional stability due to the presence of multiple carbon–fluorine bonds. The stability of PFOA is desired industrially, but a cause of concern environmentally. PFOA is resistant to degradation by natural processes such as metabolism, hydrolysis, photolysis, or biodegradation making it persist indefinitely in the environment.
PFOA is found in environmental and biological fluids as the anion perfluorooctanoate. PFOA is absorbed from ingestion and can penetrate skin. The oxygens on PFOA are responsible for how it binds proteins with fatty acid or hormone substrates such as serum albumin, liver fatty acid-binding protein, and the nuclear receptors PPARα and possibly CAR. In animals, PFOA is mainly present in the liver, blood, and kidneys. PFOA does not accumulate in fat tissue, unlike traditional organohalogen persistent organic pollutants. In humans, PFOA has an average elimination half-life of about 3 years. Because of this long half-life, PFOA has the potential to bioaccumulate.
Read more about this topic: Perfluorooctanoic Acid
Famous quotes containing the word properties:
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)