Combining Passive Sampling with Toxicological Characterization of Complex Mixtures of Pollutants from the Aquatic Environment

Abstract

The combination of polymer-based passive sampling to collect complex environmental mixtures of pollutants, the transfer of these mixtures into bioassays, and their related toxicological characterization is still in its infancy. However, this approach has considerable potential to improve environmental hazard and risk assessment for two reasons. First, the passive sampler collects a broad range of chemicals representing the fraction of compounds available for diffusion and (bio)uptake, excluding a large part of the matrix; thus, extensive sample cleanup which could discriminate certain compounds can be avoided. Second, the toxicological characterization of samples using bioassays is complementary to chemical (target) analysis within environmental monitoring because it captures all chemicals exerting the same mode of toxic action and acting jointly in mixtures, thus providing a comprehensive picture of their overall combined effects. The scientific literature describes a range of examples from the water phase where passive sampling is usually carried out in the kinetic uptake regime for most chemicals although some may already have reached equilibrium. The composition of the chemical mixture changes from the water phase to the passive sampling material because of kinetic effects and polymer/water partition coefficients which depend on the chemicals' hydrophobicity. In contrast, only a few applications in sediment and biota have been described, but amongst these some pioneering studies have demonstrated the feasibility and potential of this combined approach. This chapter gives an overview of what has been carried out in this research area, focusing on opportunities and challenges, and points out desirable future developments with a focus on the importance of choosing a suitable combination of sampling and dosing to transfer (or re-establish) the environmental mixture into the bioassay.

A Simple Teabag Equilibrium Passive Sampler using hydrophilic divinylbenzene sorbent for contaminants of emerging concern in the marine environment

“…In passive samplers, the difference in chemical potential between the aqueous and sorbent phase triggers the transport of contaminants from the water phase to the sampler material through diffusion (Górecki and Namienik, 2002;Schintu et al, 2014). Benefits of passive sampling include the insitu accumulation and pre-concentration of trace compounds, and the possible use in eco(toxico)logical studies as passive dosing devices (Jahnke et al, 2016;Kot et al, 2000;Seethapathy et al, 2008).…”

A margin of safety approach for the assessment of environmentally realistic chemical mixtures in the marine environment based on combined passive sampling and ecotoxicity testing

“…hydrophobicity) (Jahnke et al 2016). Advantages and disadvantages of both methods have been discussed elsewhere J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Journal Pre-proof (Jahnke et al 2017). Extract spiking is a well-established, simple, practical and efficient approach to transfer organic chemicals from the environment into biotest systems.…”

Direct sample introduction GC-MS/MS for quantification of organic chemicals in mammalian tissues and blood extracted with polymers without clean-up

“…Most of the applied clean-up procedures degrade non-persistent contaminants. Equilibrium passive sampling with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) can be applied to complex biota matrices [13] without altering the mixture composition, including all HOCs [14,15]. This extraction method was applied to the analysis of environmental contaminants in various complex biota matrices, e.g., fish [13,16,17], eel [18], blubber [19,20], blood plasma [21], urine [22], and whole blood [22,23].…”