Probing the limits of sampling gaseous elemental mercury passively in the remote atmosphere

Hoang, Christopher; Magand, Olivier; Brioude, J.; Dimuro, Andrea; Brunet, Christophe; Ah‐Peng, Claudine; Bertrand, Yann; Dommergue, Aurélien; Lei, Ying Duan; Wania, Frank

doi:10.1039/d2ea00119e

Cited by 6 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…A calibration at extremely cold locations might shed light into sampler performance under conditions that allow for hoar frost accumulation. 56 ■ ASSOCIATED CONTENT * sı Supporting Information…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unbiased Passive Sampling of All Polychlorinated Biphenyls Congeners from Air

Zhan

Shunthirasingham

et al. 2023

Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett.

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The desire to quantify the presence of a wide range of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in air is driven both by an interest in the sources and fate of unintentionally produced congeners and in quantifying human inhalation exposure to volatile PCBs. The wide volatility range can introduce bias when sampling the entire suite of PCBs. Here, we present the result of a field calibration experiment that demonstrates that even the most volatile PCBs maintain linear uptake in a passive air sampler using XAD-resin as the sorbent (XAD-PAS). Empirically derived sampling rates (SRs) for 66 congeners decrease with the number of chlorines and, within a homologue, increase with the number of chlorines in the ortho-position. The large seasonal temperature range at the site of the calibration allowed for an estimation of the temperature dependence of the SRs. The effects of chlorine substitution and temperature can be expressed quantitatively through a regression relating the SR to the sorption constant to XAD from the gas phase. As a result, it is possible to estimate SRs for all congeners at any deployment temperature. The XAD-PAS is well suited for unbiased sampling of gaseous PCBs in a wide variety of settings.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A calibration with long deployments at high temperatures might also be useful to establish the longest deployment time that allows for the linear sampling of the most volatile PCBs. A calibration at extremely cold locations might shed light into sampler performance under conditions that allow for hoar frost accumulation …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unbiased Passive Sampling of All Polychlorinated Biphenyls Congeners from Air

Zhan

Shunthirasingham

et al. 2023

Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett.

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“…GEM passive samplers. Two GEM passive samplers 44,45 were deployed between the 28th of April 2018 and the 4th of May 2018 close (∼200 m distance) to the eruptive vent of the April-June 2018 eruption of Piton de la Fournaise (see label "A" in Fig. 1).…”

Section: Instrumentalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observed in-plume gaseous elemental mercury depletion suggests significant mercury scavenging by volcanic aerosols

Koenig,

Magand,

Rose

et al. 2023

Environ. Sci.: Atmos.

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“…A larger number of GEM passive samplers was operating all over La Réunion Island between 2018 and 2019. This passive sampler data set is described in detail in Hoang et al (2023) 43 .…”

Section: Gem Passive Samplersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We take 0.52 ng m -3 as an upper limit for the volcanic GEM enhancement (i.e. measured GEM minus background), under consideration of the passive sampler uncertainties as reported in Hoang et al (2023).…”

Section: Appendix a Pm095 Sulfate Proxymentioning

confidence: 99%

Observed in-plume gaseous elemental mercury depletion suggests significant mercury scavenging by volcanic aerosols

Koenig

Magand

Muro

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Terrestrial volcanism is known to emit mercury (Hg) into the atmosphere. However, despite many years of investigation, its net impact on the atmospheric Hg budget remains insufficiently constrained, in part because the transformations of Hg in volcanic plumes as they age and mix with background air are poorly understood. Here we report the observation of complete gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) depletion events in dilute and moderately aged (~3-7 hours) volcanic plumes from Piton de la Fournaise on Réunion Island. While it has been suggested that co-emitted bromine could, once photochemically activated, deplete GEM in a volcanic plume, we measured low bromine concentrations in both the gas- and particle phase and observed complete GEM depletion even before sunrise, ruling out a leading role of bromine chemistry here. Instead, we hypothesize that the GEM depletions were mainly caused by gas-particle interactions with sulfate-rich volcanic particles (mostly of submicron size), abundantly present in the dilute plume. We consider heterogeneous GEM oxidation and GEM uptake by particles as plausible manifestations of such a process and derive empirical rate constants. By extrapolation, we estimate that volcanic aerosols may scavenge 210 Mg y-1 (67 – 480 Mg y-1) of Hg from the atmosphere globally, acting effectively as atmospheric mercury sink. While this estimate is subject to large uncertainties, it highlights that Hg transformations in aging volcanic plumes must be better understood to determine the net impact of volcanism on the atmospheric Hg budget and Hg deposition pathways.

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Probing the limits of sampling gaseous elemental mercury passively in the remote atmosphere

Abstract: Reliably recording very low ambient concentrations of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) in remote regions is often required, for example in the context of evaluating how effective the Minamata Convention is...

Cited by 6 publications

References 43 publications

Unbiased Passive Sampling of All Polychlorinated Biphenyls Congeners from Air

Unbiased Passive Sampling of All Polychlorinated Biphenyls Congeners from Air

Observed in-plume gaseous elemental mercury depletion suggests significant mercury scavenging by volcanic aerosols

Observed in-plume gaseous elemental mercury depletion suggests significant mercury scavenging by volcanic aerosols

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