Environmental implications of perfluorotributylamine—a potent greenhouse gas

Abstract

Perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), a newly discovered greenhouse gas with the highest radiative efficiency, may have been released into the environment from a variety of industrial and medical uses in small amounts, leading to the potential contribution to the global warming addressed in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Kyoto Protocol. The aims of this article are to review the physicochemical properties and commercial/potential uses of PFTBA reported in the current available literature and also discuss its environmental implications based on its molecular structure. Results showed that PFTBA had extremely low solubility in water and relatively high vaporization from the water bodies, suggesting that this long-lived greenhouse gas will sink into the atmosphere. This paper also addressed the possible loss pathways through reactions with highly reactive ions in the upper atmosphere and toxic decomposition products (e.g., hydrogen fluoride, fluorine, and carbonyl fluoride) emitted when heated at high temperature. In this regard, there is a need for PFTBA emission reduction strategies due to its increasing usage in many professional applications and its potential contribution to anthropogenic climate forcing in the near future.