New regulations and the ban of PFAS in many circumstances proves metrological traceability for this type of species even more important. Reference material-based PFAS standards will become available from the Key Comparison Database (KCDB) of the International Bureau of Weights and Measure (BIPM). However, for many PFAS species, low numbers of standards are available, or for specific applications, the application of reference material-based gas standards are becoming very difficult.
In this contribution we report on ideas, options, and use-cases for new PFAS quantifications based on optical gas standards (OGS). OGS are to complement reference material-based gas standards where applications or species' peculiarities prevents the use or the production of these traditional type of gas standards.
To develop an OGS and provide metrological traceability by means of an OGS, spectroscopic molecular-specific data is required. This data is often not available or, if available, it comes with unclear uncertainty statements, not fit for purpose.
We discuss work arounds and provide an outlook of future possibilities for optical means to quantify PFAS species.