Childhood exposure to per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances in educational environments: Arising from stationery and implications for health
By Yan Zhou, Yudong Xing, Xin Zhang, Xingyan Zhou, Peng Liu, Huijun Chen, Hian Kee Lee, and Zhenzhen Huang
J. Environ. Chem. Ecotoxicol.
December 15, 2025
DOI: 10.1016/j.enceco.2025.12.004
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are ubiquitous in consumer manufacturing, but their occurrence in stationery products and the associated exposure risk to children in educational environments remain unclear. A total of 17 PFAS (Σ17 PFAS) were quantitatively detected in 53 children's stationery from four categories with the overall detection frequency of 64.5 %. The concentrations of Σ17 PFAS ranged up to 70.9 ng/g, with a median value of 0.16 ng/g. The precursors in these products were confirmed by total oxidizable precursor assay. Exposure assessment showed that estimated maximum PFAS intake from pen grips via hand-to-mouth contact (0.57 ng/kg-bw/day) approached the tolerable daily intake for children established by the European Food Safety Authority (0.63 ng/kg-bw/day), highlighting a potential concern from the sources in educational environment. To further investigate the potential mechanism of PFAS dermal adsorption, molecular docking analysis was performed to evaluate the affinities of PFAS compounds toward 12 representative tight junction proteins in human skin. The emerging PFAS alternative, perfluorooctylphosphonic acid, demonstrated significantly stronger binding affinity (p < 0.05) to these tight junction proteins compared to the other analytes. This work preliminarily indicates that childhood exposure to PFAS in educational environments may occur through the use of stationery products, with computational results suggesting a potential role for tight junctions in the dermal absorption and subsequent toxicity of these compounds.
Location:
Topics: