New sampling device for on-site measurement of SVOC gas-phase concentration at the emitting material surface

Abstract

The gas-phase concentration at the material surface (y ) is pointed out in the literature as a key parameter to describe semivolatile organic compound (SVOC) emissions from materials. This is an important input data in predictive models of SVOC behavior indoors and risk exposure assessment. However, most of the existing measurement methods consist of determining emission rates and not y and none allow on-site sampling. Hence, a new passive sampler was developed. It consists of a glass cell that is simply placed on the material surface until reaching equilibrium between material and air; y is then determined by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) sampling and GC-MS analysis. The limits of detection are at the μg/m level and relative standard deviations (RSD) below 10%. A variation of 11% between two sets of experiments involving different cell volumes confirmed the y measurement. In addition, due to the ability of SVOCs to be sorbed on surfaces, the cell wall/air partition was assessed by determining the inner cell surface concentration of SVOCs, which is the concentration of SVOCs adsorbed on the glass, and the cell surface/air partition coefficient (K ). The recovery yields of the SVOCs sorbed on the cell walls are strongly compound-dependent and comprise between 2 and 93%. The K coefficients are found to be lower than the stainless steel/air partition coefficient (K ), showing that glass is suitable for the SVOC sampling. This innovative tool opens up promising perspectives in terms of identification of SVOC sources and quantification of their emissions indoors, and would significantly contribute to human exposure assessment. Graphical Abstract Passive sampling for the determination of SVOCs concentration at the material/air interface.

Modelling and parameter estimation of diethyl phthalate partitioning behaviour on glass and aluminum surfaces

“…and tris-(chloropropyl)-phosphate (TCPP) on borosilicate glass has also indicated the likely existence of a relationship between these compounds' volatility and their partition coefficients at 23 ˚C (Ghislain et al, 2017), a finding also observed for the partitioning behaviour of DINP, DEHP, BBP and DnBP over stainless steel at 25 ˚C (Liang and Xu, 2014a).…”

“…The efficiency of the washing procedure applied for transferring the DEP from the sample enclosure surface to the solvent solution prior to UV-Vis spectroscopic measurements was evaluated by four replicated experiments in which an accurate amount of DEP (5.60, 0.86, 0.79 and 0.76 mg) was added within a sample enclosure vial that was then sealed and allowed to stabilise at 60 ˚C for 13 h. Washing solutions were diluted accordingly to result in absorbances within the linear range of the calibration curve. From these, an average recovery efficiency of 105.95 ± 7.01 % was recorded, as further illustrated in Table S1 of the SI, which was considered excellent (Cao et al, 2016;Ghislain et al, 2017;Wu et al, 2017).…”

“…another example, the adsorption TEP, TBP and TCPP emitted from a polyurethane foam containing between 5 and 7.6 wt% of the above compounds, on borosilicate glass was observed to equilibrate after between 2 to 5 h at 23 ˚C in a 60 cm 3 sealed chamber presenting an emitting source of 17 cm 2 and an adsorptive surface of approximately 50 cm 2 (Ghislain et al, 2017).…”

“…However, even for the most widely researched SVOCs, significantly different partition coefficients have been reported at similar temperatures, stressing the urgent need for further research in this field, as also pointed out by (Wei et al, 2019). For instance, values for the partition coefficient of DEHP on glass surfaces have been reported as equal to 3800 m at 22 ˚C (Xu and Little, 2006), 600 m at 25 ˚C (Wu et al, 2017) and 0.26 m at 23 ˚C (Ghislain et al, 2017).…”

Recent Applications and Newly Developed Strategies of Solid-Phase Microextraction in Contaminant Analysis: Through the Environment to Humans

“…The areas in which the research has mainly been addressed during the last five years have regarded the use of commercially available coatings, as well as the development of new coatings and their application. Many studies have been conducted in indoor environments in order Separations 2019, 6, 54 3 of 44 to monitor exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs) that are released into the air by many activities [1][2][3], but also by used furnishing [4,5]. Commercially available (divinylbenzene/carboxen/polydimethylsiloxane) DVB/CAR/PDMS fiber has been successfully employed in a method for the simultaneous analysis of trihalomethanes (THMs) such as trichloromethane, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane, and tribromomethane, in ambient air [1].…”