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Novel Fluorinated Compounds Discovered In Firefighters' Blood
ckwu writes: Perfluorinated compounds help firefighting foams rapidly flow over flaming liquids such as gasoline and jet fuel, cooling and quenching fires. But despite environmental scientists' concerns about these possibly toxic compounds, researchers don't know the identity of many of the chemicals in the mixtures on the market. For the first time, a new study borrows a medical research tool to pinpoint fluorochemicals in the blood of firefighters, identifying novel compounds that have never before been publicly reported.
We hardly know everything that is in gasoline (about a hundred compounds, mostly C4-C9 isomers). Jet fuel is more complex and diesel (C10-C20) is just too far gone.
Why would you expect to know the exact isomers (and recemization) in a fluorinated organic? The fluorine will go on in various places. And even if you think you know, it will change once thermally cracked at fire temperatures.
Mostly harmless, but there will be the odd one with just the wrong geometry to do somethink nasty, like the way BPA binds estrogen receptors.