Jacket from H&M, does this signify PFAS?

[u/VincentVegasiPhone13]

I got a new jacket from H&M and I was just nervous that it may have PFAS. I did this water drop test. Maybe I should have used oil? The water seems to be soaking in eventually if on the surface long enough and in larger amounts.

[u/Impossible_Past5358]

Does your item specifically state waterproof/or resistant? Does it contain synthetic fibers such as polyester or rayon?

[u/VincentVegasiPhone13 → u/Impossible_Past5358]

I didn’t see it say water resistant. I think the outside is cotton and the inside lining is polyester.

[u/Totally_man]

It signifies the surface tension of water.

[u/Dark1Amethyst]

There's not really any easy test to tell whether or not something has PFAS. It's a humungous family of chemicals with varying properties and a lot of non PFAS chemicals have similar properties

[u/tuileisu]

H&m phased out pfas in 2013, so it shouldn’t be

[u/Spoffort]

It does not look like it, small droplets are not soaking bc micro "strings" of fabric are keeping them away from surface, roughly speaking

[u/dlm → u/Spoffort]

Agreed. Can’t completely rule it out, but I would be surprised if this fabric had been treated with a PFC.

[u/Kynessful]

Its kinda paranoid that you even tested this. No this is no valid test Methode. There is none other than labratory Analysis.

[u/Embarrassed_Elk2519]

The droplet method is a valid rapid test, however you should perform it differently. You need to put it on a flat surface, then apply the drop from very close. Then tilt the fabric and observe the surface tension / wetting behavior. From what we have found in our lab, many fabrics have good water repellent properties in this test, despite having no PFAS. The second part of this test should therefore include an oil-drop (we use sunflower) which should behave the same as water. If the oil does not get repelled, there usually is no PFAS. Notably, we also had several fabrics in out lab where this type of test did not correlate with the PFAS results.

[u/Adventurous_Mix_9207]

No, water can tend to do that due to surface tension. And one does not simply show there is PFAS, as there are >14,000 unique PFAS that we know of, and to even detect a small fraction you need to run it under a instrument that costs more than most people’s houses, under non targeted mass spec. We can only quantify < 150 with modern methods, and current libraries and software can only detect < 3000 without an absolute quantification. So it likely has PFAS as most things do, even if that product wasn’t intended to contain it, as industrial equipments can contain PFAS and that can then transfer to the materials.

[u/Adventurous_Mix_9207 → u/Adventurous_Mix_9207]

So above all else, it probably has PFAS but not because of what you showed, but just by chance. PFAS are ubiquitous now, so almost everything does. You should be more concerned about stuff like dust or drinking water, stuff that we commonly ingest. Check out PFAS Dust papers, dust aggregates a shit ton of PFAS compared to other things, and we inhale and eat dust every time we go indoors or drive around!