Source apportionment of perfluoroalkyl substances in surface sediments from lakes in Jiangsu Province, China: Comparison of three receptor models.

Receptor models have been proved as useful tools to identify source categories and quantitatively calculate the contributions of extracted sources. In this study, sixty surface sediment samples were collected from fourteen lakes in Jiangsu Province, China. The total concentrations of C4-C14-perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (∑12PFASs) in sediments ranged from 0.264 to 4.44ng/gdw (dry weight), with an average of 1.76ng/gdw. Three commonly-applied receptor models, namely principal component analysis-multiple linear regression (PCA-MLR), positive matrix factorization (PMF) and Unmix models, were employed to apportion PFAS sources in sediments. Overall, these three models all could well track the ∑12PFASs concentrations as well as the concentrations explained in sediments. These three models identified consistently four PFAS sources: the textile treatment sources, the fluoropolymer processing aid/fluororesin coating sources, the textile treatment/metal plating sources and the precious metal sources, contributing 28.1%, 37.0%, 29.7% and 5.3% by PCA-MLR model, 30.60%, 39.3%, 22.4% and 7.7% by PMF model, and 20.6%, 52.4%, 20.2% and 6.8% by Unmix model to the ∑12PFASs, respectively. Comparative statistics of multiple analytical methods could minimize individual-method weaknesses and provide convergent results to enhance the persuasiveness of the conclusions. The findings could give us a better knowledge of PFAS sources in aquatic environments.