Passive air sampling for semi-volatile organic chemicals

Abstract

A comprehensive and critical review of the state-of-knowledge on the sampling of trace organic contaminants from the atmosphere without the help of a pump.

Unique calibration of passive air sampling for field monitoring of PAHs with polyethylene thin films across seasons and locations

“…This suggests the use of an average value of d g independent of the season (here 1 mm) which corresponds to a general calibration of passive sampling kinetics for a specic set-up, such as used before within the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling network. 7,61 This would then also apply for long-term monitoring of higher molecular weight PAHs which have characteristic time scales for equilibration of several months (Fig. 2).…”

“…Earlier studies have illustrated how complex the determination of precise sampling rates is and how easily errors can be made when calibrating passive samplers. 7,65 Sampling rates, or the amount of target compound sampled usually expressed as air volume per time, [66][67][68] for a given PAS conguration are reported to vary over several orders of magnitude, depending on the environmental conditions, the considered time span, the target compound, and even the concentrations on the passive samplers. 15,56,69,70 Since they are signicantly inuenced by the ambient temperature, wind speed and wind angle, sampling rates can vary considerably within a sampling campaign.…”

“…14 Application of PAS thus far is mainly semi-quantitative 15 or used to examine prevailing ux direction rather than uctuation in rates 16,17 and still several uncertainties exist. 7 The theory of passive sampling is well described in literature. 4,[18][19][20][21][22] Following a double-lm diffusion conceptual model, 23 equilibrium conditions exist at the interface of a PAS and air, with concentration gradients evolving on both sides leading to boundary layers at the air-side (d g ) and the samplerside (d p ) which act as mass transfer resistances.…”

Characterizing the regional concentrations and seasonality of the emerging pollutant decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) using a WRF+CHIMERE modeling approach

“…Based on the group's expertise and on the related literature (Genualdi et al, 2011;Ahrens et al, 2014), a deployment time of 3 months was chosen. The stability of D5 in the sorbent media could be a limitation, as the possibility of degradation into D3 and D4 during sampling was suggested (Krogseth et al, 2013a), but this is more of a concern when polyurethane foam disks alone are used, since XAD sorbents increase the general stability of semivolatile organic compounds (Wania and Shunthirasingham, 2020). Shorter periods could have been chosen with different configurations or sorbents (Krogseth et al, 2013b), but 3 months also coincides with the period commonly adopted in chemistry transport and climatic modeling for a yearround seasonal behavior, with the following division: December-January-February, March-April-May, June-July-August, and September-October-November.…”

Global intercomparison of polyurethane foam passive air samplers evaluating sources of variability in SVOC measurements

“…Polyurethane foam passive air samplers (PUF-PAS) are widely used in international air monitoring of POPs ( Borůvková et al, 2015 ; Muñoz-Arnanz et al, 2016 ; Pozo et al, 2009 ; Wania and Shunthirasingham, 2020 ) and other semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs). The spatial coverage and ease-of-use of PUF-PAS has been crucial in enabling the development of international air monitoring programs such as GAPS (Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling) and MONET ( Lee et al, 2007 ; Muñoz-Arnanz et al, 2018 , 2016 ; Pozo et al, 2006 ; Přibylová et al, 2012 ; Rauert et al, 2018 ; Roscales et al, 2018a ; White et al, 2021 ), and their use in many individual case studies has greatly increased our knowledge of atmospheric levels of SVOCs.…”