Food & Drink / Compounds / PFMBA (Perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid)

PFMBA (Perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid) in food: ingestion safety

Moderate risk

(People-specific data is limited; this page draws from human adult context.) Virtually no published toxicological data. Extremely persistent and mobile in water. Risk assessment hampered by data gaps.

What is pfmba (perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid)?

The IUPAC name is 2,2,3,3,4,4-hexafluoro-4-(trifluoromethoxy)butanoic acid.

Also known as: Perfluoro-4-methoxybutanoic acid, RefChem:860222, 640-688-5, 863090-89-5.

IUPAC name
2,2,3,3,4,4-hexafluoro-4-(trifluoromethoxy)butanoic acid
CAS number
863090-89-5
Molecular formula
C5HF9O3
Molecular weight
280.04 g/mol
SMILES
C(=O)(C(C(C(OC(F)(F)F)(F)F)(F)F)(F)F)O
PubChem CID
12498036

Risk for people

Moderate risk

Virtually no published toxicological data. Extremely persistent and mobile in water. Risk assessment hampered by data gaps.

Regulatory consensus

2 regulatory and scientific bodies have classified PFMBA (Perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid). The classifications differ — that's the data.

AgencyYearClassificationNotes
EPA——
NC DEQ——

Regulators apply different standards of evidence — animal-data weighting, exposure-pattern assumptions, epidemiological power thresholds — which is why two scientific bodies can review the same data and reach different conclusions. The disagreement is the data.

Where you encounter pfmba (perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid)

  • Drinking Water — Cape Fear River downstream of Chemours, NC municipal water systems
    Co-occurs with PFMPA and GenX in Chemours contamination plume
  • Industrial Discharge — Fluoropolymer manufacturing effluent
    Byproduct of fluoropolymer production

Safer alternatives

Lower-risk approaches that achieve a similar outcome to PFMBA (Perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid):

  • Non-fluorinated manufacturing processes
    Trade-offs: Functional performance and cost-effectiveness may vary by application.
    Relative cost: 1.2-2×

Frequently asked questions

What products contain pfmba (perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid)?

PFMBA (Perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid) appears in: Cape Fear River downstream of Chemours (drinking water); NC municipal water systems (drinking water); Fluoropolymer manufacturing effluent (industrial discharge).

See PFMBA (Perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid) in the food app

Look up products containing pfmba (perfluoro-3-methoxypropanoic acid), compare to alternatives, and explore the full data record.

Open in food View raw API data

Sources (1)
  1. — expert_curation

Reference data, not professional advice. Aggregates publicly available regulatory and scientific data; not a substitute for veterinary, medical, legal, or regulatory advice. Why we built ALETHEIA →