19F NMR APPLICATION

FLUOVIAL 19F NMR & Machine Learning Platform


CASC4DE has developped  FLUOVIAL, efficient  19F NMR and Machine Learning techniques for analysis, detection, characterisation, quantification and even identification of fluorinated compounds from NMR spectra. In particular, this platform is suitable for PFAS pollutants (Per- and/or PolyFluoroAlkyl substances classified as “emerging contaminants”).

Thus our FLUOVIAL platform combines:

  • a Fluorine NMR spectral database including spectra from various known fluorinated species families,
  • a Machine Learning software to automate analysis of  19F NMR datasets.

Interested in detecting fluorinated compounds, characterising, quantifying and identifying them on your samples ?

FLUOVIAL platform allows to differentiate species ! 

Fast and automatized analysis by Machine Learning treatment.

Indeed Casc4de has developed a non-specific and non destructive analytical method without previous separation or purification on samples. It even allows to differentiate fluorinated molecules in complex mixtures (even water effluents, soils,…) from their NMR spectra.

Typically, for fluorinated molecules19F NMR allows to distinguish:

  • aromatic Φ-F, 
  • -CF3, -O-CF3
  • aliphatic -CF2-, -CHF-…

For PFAS compounds, additional information may be available through NMR experiments such as estimation of :

  • average length of chain, 
  • polydispersity,
  • functionalization of per- and polyfluoroalkyl chains.

Fluorinated NMR datasets are preprocessed implementing an automatic pipeline: Plasmodesma web service.

The work was partly supported by innovation funding programs from ANR, the French National Research Agency and Alsace Innovation agency.

 

Fluovial illustration

Nowadays fluorine appears in many compounds:  pesticides, pharmaceuticals,  veterinary drugs and PFC polymers (PFAS,…). Therefore it is found in many emergent environmental contaminants, in particular  persistent organic pollutants (POP). Detection by 19F NMR of Fluorine in milk (top left), soil (middle left) and effluent water (bottom left), showing organic fluorine. In particular PFOA molecules in soil and water; the DOSY performed on the water sample shows two molecular populations (bottom right). Current detection limit is 9 ppb (top right).

 

The results associated with this project were presented at GERM (Milan, Italy) in September 2022 and at the scientific meeting on endocrine disruptors organized by ANSES in June 2024 (Paris, France).

As a result of this work, CASC4DE was able to join the IPANEMA project, which is partially supported by ADEME and involved working with CNRS, INRAE, Gustave Eiffel University, and the company VALGO. Our job is to develop and evaluate a non-targeted fluorine magnetic resonance (NMR) quantification technique that may be used in tandem with mass spectrometry (MS) to characterize PFAS mixes found in environmental matrices.