Passive Air Sampling of PCBs, PBDEs, and Organochlorine Pesticides Across Europe

Abstract

This study presents concurrently sampled ambient air data for a range of persistent organic pollutants at the continental scale. This was achieved using a passive air sampling system, deploying polyurethane foam disks, which was prepared in one laboratory, sealed to prevent contamination, sent out by courier to volunteers participating in different countries, exposed for 6 weeks, collected, resealed, and returned to the laboratory for analysis. Europe was the study area--a region with a history of extensive POPs usage and emission and with marked national differences in population density, the degree of urbanization and industrial/agricultural development. Samplers were deployed at remote/rural/urban locations in 22 countries and analyzed for PCBs, a range of organochlorine pesticides (HCB, alpha-HCH, gamma-HCH, ppDDT, ppDDE), and PBDEs. Calculated air concentrations were in line with those obtained by conventional active air sampling techniques. The geographical pattern of all compounds reflected suspected regional emission patterns and highlighted localized hotspots. PCB and PBDE levels varied by over 2 orders of magnitude; the highest values were detected in areas of high usage and were linked to urbanized areas. HCB was relatively uniformly distributed, reflecting its persistence and high degree of mixing in air. Higher gamma-HCH, ppDDT, and ppDDE levels generally occurred in South and East Europe.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in air and soil from a high-altitude pasture in the Italian Alps: evidence of CB-209 contamination

“…The mean concentration in air (35.4 ± 23.2 pg m −3 , Table S5) was almost identical to that measured by Nizzetto et al (2008) in another Alpine valley (34.6±10.4 pg m −3 ) and agrees with background concentrations for rural and remote sites in Europe (Jaward et al 2004;Van Drooge et al 2004). GLM analysis reveals that the height above soil (0.15 and 1.80 m) was highly significant for determining the PCB concentrations in air (P=0.001 for the ΣPCBs), whereas season and aspect were not (P=0.21 and P=0.12 for the ΣPCBs, respectively).…”

“…Including these samples, the mean sampling rate becomes 4.78±2.3 m 3 day −1 . Nevertheless, PUF diskderived concentrations are in good agreement with those from high-volume active samplers, with differences generally within a factor of 2 (Jaward et al 2004). Considering the short deployment times of this study (Table S2) in relation to the T 25 values of the analysed PCBs (Table S4), a constant sampling rate was considered appropriate.…”

Hexachlorobenzene sources, levels and human exposure in the environment of China

“…Jaward et al (2005) studied the spatial distribution of HCB concentrations across Asia by passive sampling survey using PUF discs in 2004, which revealed that air HCB levels in China showed much variation, increasing gradually from southwest to northeast (Table 2). It is different from the uniform distribution found in South Korea (14-95 pg/m 3 ), Japan (26-136 pg/m 3 ) (Jaward et al, 2005) and Europe (1.4-8.9 pg/m 3 ) (Jaward et al, 2004), which indicated that there were some primary emission sources of HCB in China. Although HCB production was completely stopped in 2004, HCB emissions from waste dumpsites and contaminated soils in the former HCB factories in Tianjin and Fuzhou may be responsible for the high air HCB levels in Tianjin, Beijing, and Fuzhou.…”

“…Even in the remote area (the Mt. Everest region), air HCB levels were also higher than the levels in Europe (1.4-8.9 pg/m 3 ) (Jaward et al, 2004). HCB levels in air were highest in China among the countries (Japan, South Korea, and Singapore) across Asia in 2004.…”

A GIS model-based assessment of the environmental distribution of γ-hexachlorocyclohexane in European soils and waters

“…y-HCH air concentration and deposition have been included in many monitoring programs over the past years (Bartnicki et al, 2004;Jaward et al, 2004;EMEP, 2009;Buijsman and Van Pul, 2003;Van Drooge et al, 2004), highlighting that the main atmospheric removal mechanism is deposition, especially in wet form above land surfaces due to the relatively high solubility in water; dry deposition may be more important above sea surfaces (Buijsman and Van Pul, 2003). Concentrations show clear season patterns with highest concentrations during spring-summer that could be explained due to agricultural applications still allowed in some countries (Ma et al, 2003).…”