Evaluation of Passive Samplers for Assessment of Community Exposure to Toxic Air Contaminants and Related Pollutants

Abstract

The precision, accuracy, and sampling rates of Radiello and Ogawa passive samplers were evaluated in the laboratory using a flow-through chamber and under field conditions prior to their use in the 2007 Harbor Community Monitoring Study (HCMS), a saturation monitoring campaign in the communities adjacent to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Passive methods included Radiello samplers for volatile organic compounds (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, 1,3-butadiene), aldehydes (formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein) and hydrogen sulfide, and Ogawa samplers for nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide. Additional experiments were conducted to study the robustness of the passive sampling methods under variable ambient wind speed, sampling duration, and storage time before analysis. Our experimentally determined sampling rates were in agreement with the rates published by Radiello and Ogawa with the following exceptions: we observed a diffusion rate of 22.4 ± 0.1 mL/min for benzene and 37.4 ± 1.5 mL/min for ethylbenzene compared to the Radiello published values of 27.8 and 25.7 mL/min, respectively. With few exceptions, the passive monitoring methods measured one-week average ambient concentrations of selected pollutants with sensitivity and precision comparable to conventional monitoring methods averaged over the same period. Radiello Carbograph 4 VOC sampler is not suitable for the collection of 1,3-butadiene due to backdiffusion. Results for the Radiello aldehyde sampler were inconclusive due to lack of reliable reference methods for all carbonyl compounds of interest.

Hydrogen sulfide measurements in air by passive/diffusive samplers and high-frequency analyzer: A critical comparison

“…Differently, in this study the H 2 S R concentrations were higher than the H 2 S Ta values, with the only exceptions of those measured at #9, #10, #13 and #19 (Table 1). Although the true H 2 S concentrations were not known, the apparent contradiction between lab tests (Mason et al, 2011;Pavilonis et al, 2013) and outdoor measurements (this study) may be related to the influence of the air temperature on the Radiello ® traps that, according to eq. (2), controls the Q K value.…”

Air Quality at Devils Postpile National Monument, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA

“…(Radiello also supplies these sampling rates for a number of commonly collected compounds.) These sampling rates were validated in chamber experiments for number of VOCs and by comparison with reference methods (Fujita et al, 2009;Mason et al, 2011;Fujita et al, 2013). Masses of analytes were calculated after the average blank result was subtracted from the analytical result.…”

“…When concentrations of these compounds are high -which can happen during wildfires -over time they tend to replace lower molecular weight compounds. This process is known as back diffusion (Mason et al, 2011), and it is one of the main reasons that exposure times longer than 2 weeks are not recommended (Radiello, 2016). This phenomenon appears to have corrupted the VOC passive sampler data collected during the fourth sampling period of the 2013 season (i.e., during the peak intensity of the Aspen Fire), when near zero values were recorded for all of the measured compounds, such that the sum total of all the measured VOCs (i.e., the total column height in Fig.…”

Indoor VOCs from Religious and Ritual Burning Practices in India

“…The quantification of VOCs was done by the thermal desorption-cryogenic pre-concentration method, followed by high-resolution gas chromatographic separation and mass spectrometric detection (GC/MS) of individual compounds. Details of analysis procedure were described elsewhere (Mason et al, 2011;Dewangan et al, 2013).…”