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EC number: 206-556-2 | CAS number: 354-32-5
- Life Cycle description
- Uses advised against
- Endpoint summary
- Appearance / physical state / colour
- Melting point / freezing point
- Boiling point
- Density
- Particle size distribution (Granulometry)
- Vapour pressure
- Partition coefficient
- Water solubility
- Solubility in organic solvents / fat solubility
- Surface tension
- Flash point
- Auto flammability
- Flammability
- Explosiveness
- Oxidising properties
- Oxidation reduction potential
- Stability in organic solvents and identity of relevant degradation products
- Storage stability and reactivity towards container material
- Stability: thermal, sunlight, metals
- pH
- Dissociation constant
- Viscosity
- Additional physico-chemical information
- Additional physico-chemical properties of nanomaterials
- Nanomaterial agglomeration / aggregation
- Nanomaterial crystalline phase
- Nanomaterial crystallite and grain size
- Nanomaterial aspect ratio / shape
- Nanomaterial specific surface area
- Nanomaterial Zeta potential
- Nanomaterial surface chemistry
- Nanomaterial dustiness
- Nanomaterial porosity
- Nanomaterial pour density
- Nanomaterial photocatalytic activity
- Nanomaterial radical formation potential
- Nanomaterial catalytic activity
- Endpoint summary
- Stability
- Biodegradation
- Bioaccumulation
- Transport and distribution
- Environmental data
- Additional information on environmental fate and behaviour
- Ecotoxicological Summary
- Aquatic toxicity
- Endpoint summary
- Short-term toxicity to fish
- Long-term toxicity to fish
- Short-term toxicity to aquatic invertebrates
- Long-term toxicity to aquatic invertebrates
- Toxicity to aquatic algae and cyanobacteria
- Toxicity to aquatic plants other than algae
- Toxicity to microorganisms
- Endocrine disrupter testing in aquatic vertebrates – in vivo
- Toxicity to other aquatic organisms
- Sediment toxicity
- Terrestrial toxicity
- Biological effects monitoring
- Biotransformation and kinetics
- Additional ecotoxological information
- Toxicological Summary
- Toxicokinetics, metabolism and distribution
- Acute Toxicity
- Irritation / corrosion
- Sensitisation
- Repeated dose toxicity
- Genetic toxicity
- Carcinogenicity
- Toxicity to reproduction
- Specific investigations
- Exposure related observations in humans
- Toxic effects on livestock and pets
- Additional toxicological data
Endpoint summary
Administrative data
Description of key information
Additional information
TFAC is extremely unstable in water, where it is rapidly hydroysed to Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and hydrogen chloride. Therefore TFA is considered as the actual and relevant species present in the environment. Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is a strong organic acid with a pKa of around 0.43 so it will be under dissociated form in all environmental compartments.
The possible reductive and oxidative degradation of TFA has been investigated by photocatalytic experiments conducted with aqueous suspensions of semiconducting materials. TFA proved to be a rather inert compound under practically all conditions and from these experiments it can be postulated that direct and indirect photolysis are not expected to be an important transformation process for TFA in water and air. No standard test is available to assess the decomposition or degradation of TFA by reaction with water. However the hydrolysis potential of TFA is expected to be very low based on its chemical structure, the preliminary results of non standard tests and the concentrations stability observed during analytical measurements of standard biodegradation and ecotox tests. The results of standard respiration tests with activated sludge showed that trifluoroacetic acid is not readily nor inherently biodegradable and non standard tests on several bacterial stains and different substrates showed that trifluoroacetic acid is not biodegradable under aerobic conditions. Moreover, one field study investigated the degradation of TFA in field aquatic microcosms and laboratory sediment water systems. Trifluoroacetic acid was extremely persistent and showed no degradation during one-year field studies and 2880h in laboratory microsoms. Only a non assignable test showed some potential of biodegradation under anaerobic conditions.
In conclusion, TFA was found to be highly resistant to abiotic and biotic degradation and, coupled with its extreme chemical stability, these results suggest a very long lifetime for TFA in the environment.
No bioaccumulation studies obtained from established experimental protocols are available for TFA. The substance is expected to have a low potential for bioaccumulation according to its log Kow of 0.79 at 25°C. However, because of the structural similarity of TFA to acetate it was suspected that organisms might use the fluorinated compound to synthesize biomolecules and several non standard experimental studies were conducted on aquatic and terrestrial organisms. The results indicate a low level of incorporation of TFA by aquatic (microbial communities, phytoplancton, oligochaetes, macroinvertebrates,Callitriche sp., Lemna sp. and Impatiens capensis) and terrestrial (Pines, Lycopersicon esculentum, wheat and sunflower) organisms spanning a range of trophic levels. In some aquatic species, TFA was incorporated into their biomolecule fractions and thus was metabolically transformed and in some terrestrial species some evidence of TFA depuration was found on transfer to clean medium.
In conclusion, these results show that TFA does not accumulate significantly in lower aquatic life forms such as bacteria, algae, small invertebrates, oligochaete worms and some aquatic and terrestrial plants.
The Henry's Law constant (KH) for trifluoroacetic acid, 0.009 Pa.m3.mol-1, was calculated by the average of two measured values 8950 and 5800 mol.kg-1.atm-1 at 25°C reported in two valid peer reviewed studies. Standard and non standard adsortion/desorption tests results show that TFA is poorly absorbed to the soil and is considered as a mobile organic compound at the majority of soils investigated. The Kd ranged between 0.19 to 20 L/kg for organic and mineral soils (the organic horizon exhibiting greater retention) giving a geometric mean of 0.94 L/kg (SD= 4.86, n= 20). Further, TFA was added experimentally to upland and wetland forest in two field studies. More than 70% of the added TFA was exported from the upland forest in drainage water while the reminder was retained in the surface organic soil (10-20%) and vegetation (5-20%). In contrast, probably <5% of the added TFA flowed out of the forest wetland in drainage water. Considerable TFA was retained in the forest wetland soil (20 -60%) and vegetation (20-50%). With such results and because trifluoroacetic acid is totally miscible with water and has a log Kow value of 0.79 at 25°C, the preferred environmental compartment will be water, rather than air, ground or biota.
Information on Registered Substances comes from registration dossiers which have been assigned a registration number. The assignment of a registration number does however not guarantee that the information in the dossier is correct or that the dossier is compliant with Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (the REACH Regulation). This information has not been reviewed or verified by the Agency or any other authority. The content is subject to change without prior notice.
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