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Use of passive sampling devices for monitoring and compliance checking of POP concentrations in water

  • POPs Workshop, ten years after the signature of the Stockholm convention
  • Published:
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Abstract

Background

The state of the art of passive water sampling of (nonpolar) organic contaminants is presented. Its suitability for regulatory monitoring is discussed, with an emphasis on the information yielded by passive sampling devices (PSDs), their relevance and associated uncertainties. Almost all persistent organic pollutants (POPs) targeted by the Stockholm Convention are nonpolar or weakly polar, hydrophobic substances, making them ideal targets for sampling in water using PSDs. Widely used nonpolar PSDs include semi-permeable membrane devices, low-density polyethylene and silicone rubber.

Results and discussion

The inter-laboratory variation of equilibrium partition constants between PSD and water is mostly 0.2–0.5 log units, depending on the exact matrix used. The sampling rate of PSDs is best determined by using performance reference compounds during field deployment. The major advantage of PSDs over alternative matrices applicable in trend monitoring (e.g. sediments or biota) is that the various sources of variance including analytical variance and natural environmental variance can be much better controlled, which in turn results in a reduction of the number of analysed samples required to obtain results with comparable statistical power.

Conclusion

Compliance checking with regulatory limits and analysis of temporal and spatial contaminant trends are two possible fields of application. In contrast to the established use of nonpolar PSDs, polar samplers are insufficiently understood, but research is in progress to develop PSDs for the quantitative assessment of polar waterborne contaminants. In summary, PSD-based monitoring is a mature technique for the measurement of aqueous concentrations of apolar POPs, with a well-defined accuracy and precision.

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Acknowledgements

R.L. acknowledges funding from EPA’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Award GLAS # 00E00597-0 supporting passive sampler research at URI.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, 215 South Ferry Rd, Narragansett, 02882, RI, USA

    Rainer Lohmann

  2. NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, P.O. Box 59, 1790 AB, Texel, The Netherlands

    Kees Booij

  3. Deltares, Geo-environmental Research Laboratory, P.O. box 85467, 3508 AL, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Foppe Smedes

  4. Masaryk University, Faculty of Science, Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment RECETOX, Kamenice 126/3, 625 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Foppe Smedes & Branislav Vrana

Authors
  1. Rainer Lohmann
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  2. Kees Booij
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  3. Foppe Smedes
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  4. Branislav Vrana
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Correspondence to Rainer Lohmann.

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Lohmann, R., Booij, K., Smedes, F. et al. Use of passive sampling devices for monitoring and compliance checking of POP concentrations in water. Environ Sci Pollut Res 19, 1885–1895 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-0748-9

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