Evaluation of the Use of Diffusive Air Samplers for Determining Temporal and Spatial Variation of Volatile Organic Compounds in the Ambient Air of Urban Communities

Abstract

The Houston-Galveston metropolitan area has a relatively high density of point and mobile sources of air toxics, and determining and understanding the relationship between emissions and ambient air concentrations of air toxics is important for evaluating potential impacts on public health and formulating effective regulatory policies to control this impact, both in this region and elsewhere. However, conventional ambient air monitoring approaches are limited with regard to expense, siting limitations, and representative sampling necessary for adequate exposure assessment. The overall goal of this multiphase study is to evaluate the use of simple passive air samplers to determine temporal and spatial variability of the ambient air concentrations of selected volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urban areas. Phase 1 of this study, reported here, was a field evaluation of 3M organic vapor monitors (OVMs) involving limited comparisons with commonly used active sampling methods, an assessment of sampler precision, a determination of optimal sampling duration, and an investigation of the utility of a simple modification of the commercial sampler. The results indicated that a sampling duration of 72 hr exhibited generally low bias relative to automated continuous gas chromatography measurements, good overall precision, and an acceptable number of measurements above detection limits. The modified sampler showed good correlation with the commercial sampler, with higher sampling rates, although lower than expected.     

Sampling frequency guidance for ambient air toxics monitoring

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of designing a national network to monitor hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), also known as air toxics. The purposes of the expanded monitoring are to (1) characterize ambient concentrations in representative areas; (2) provide data to support and evaluate dispersion and receptor models; and (3) establish trends and evaluate the effectiveness of HAP emission reduction strategies. Existing air toxics data, in the form of an archive compiled by EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS), are used in this paper to examine the relationship between estimated annual average (AA) HAP concentrations and their associated variability. The goal is to assess the accuracy, or bias and precision, with which the AA can be estimated as a function of ambient concentration levels and sampling frequency. The results suggest that, for several air toxics, a sampling schedule of 1 in 3 days (1:3) or 1:6 days maybe appropriate for meeting some of the general objectives of the national network, with the more intense sampling rate being recommended for areas expected to exhibit relatively high ambient levels.     

Air toxics in Canada measured by the National Air Pollution Surveillance (NAPS) program and their relation to ambient air quality guidelines

This study reports ambient concentrations of 63 air toxics that were measured in Canada by the National Air Pollution Surveillance (NAPS) program over the period 2009–2013. Measured concentrations are compared with ambient air quality guidelines from Canadian jurisdictions, and compounds that exceeded guidelines are identified and discussed. Although this study does not assess risk or cumulative effects, air toxics that approached guidelines are also identified so that their potential contribution to ambient air toxics pollution can be considered. Eleven air toxics exceeded at least one guideline, and an additional 16 approached guidelines during the study period. Four compounds were measured using methods whose detection limits exceeded a guideline value, three of which could not be compared with guidelines, since they were not detected in any samples. The assessment of several metal(loid) concentrations is tentative, since they were measured only in fine particulate matter (PM) but compared with guidelines based on coarse or total PM. Improvements to sampling and analysis techniques for the latter compounds as well as for those whose methods are subject to known uncertainties would improve confidence in reported concentrations and their relation to applicable guidelines. Analysis of sampling strategies for all compounds found to exceed or approach guidelines would contribute to ensuring that their spatiotemporal coverage is adequate. Examination of the air toxics not measured by NAPS but having guidelines in Canadian jurisdictions or being included in other programs such as the U.S. National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) would contribute to ensuring that the full suite of pollutants relevant to ambient air quality in Canada is subject to adequate study. The results of this study can be applied to evaluating the effectiveness of toxic substances management in Canada.

Implications: Recent measurements of 63 air toxics in Canada by the National Air Pollution Surveillance (NAPS) program showed that 11 compounds exceeded daily or annual ambient air quality guidelines and that an additional 16 compounds approached such guidelines within an order of magnitude. The results of this study can be applied to evaluating the effectiveness of toxic substances management in Canada and to identifying compounds that merit further investigation.     

High time-resolved measurements of organic air toxics in different source regimes

High time-resolved (HTR) measurements can provide significant insight into sources and exposures of air pollution. In this study, an automated instrument was developed and deployed to measure hourly concentrations of 18 gas-phase organic air toxics and 6 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at three sites in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The sites represent different source regimes: a site with substantial mobile-source emissions; a residential site adjacent to a heavily industrialized zone; and an urban background site. Despite the close proximity of the sites (less than 13 km apart), the temporal characteristic of outdoor concentrations varied widely. Most of the compounds measured were characterized by short periods of elevated concentrations or plume events, but the duration, magnitude and composition of these events varied from site to site. The HTR data underscored the strong role of emissions from local sources on exposure to most air toxics. Plume events contributed more than 50% of the study average concentrations for all pollutants except chloroform, 1,2-dichloroethane, and carbon tetrachloride. Wind directional dependence of air toxic concentrations revealed that emissions from large industrial facilities affected concentrations at all of the sites. Diurnal patterns and weekend/weekday variations indicated the effects of the mixing layer, point source emissions patterns, and mobile source air toxics (MSATs) on concentrations. Concentrations of many air toxics were temporally correlated, especially MSATs, indicating that they are likely co-emitted. It was also shown that correlations of the HTR data were greater than lower time resolution data (24-h measurements). This difference was most pronounced for the chlorinated pollutants. The stronger correlations in HTR measurements underscore their value for source apportionment studies.     

A method of assessing air toxics concentrations in urban areas using mobile platform measurements

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate an approach to characterize the spatial variability in ambient air concentrations using mobile platform measurements. This approach may be useful for air toxics assessments in Environmental Justice applications, epidemiological studies, and environmental health risk assessments. In this study, we developed and applied a method to characterize air toxics concentrations in urban areas using results of the recently conducted field study in Wilmington, DE. Mobile measurements were collected over a 4- x 4-km area of downtown Wilmington for three components: formaldehyde (representative of volatile organic compounds and also photochemically reactive pollutants), aerosol size distribution (representing fine particulate matter), and water-soluble hexavalent chromium (representative of toxic metals). These measurements were,used to construct spatial and temporal distributions of air toxics in the area that show a very strong temporal variability, both diurnally and seasonally. An analysis of spatial variability indicates that all pollutants varied significantly by location, which suggests potential impact of local sources. From the comparison with measurements at the central monitoring site, we conclude that formaldehyde and fine particulates show a positive correlation with temperature, which could also be the reason that photochemically generated formaldehyde and fine particulates over the study area correlate well with the fine particulate matter measured at the central site.     

Sources of variability in ambient air toxics monitoring data

Under the Clean Air Act Amendments, the United States Environmental Protection Agency is required to regulate emissions of 188 hazardous air pollutants. The EPA, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards is currently conducting a National-scale Air Toxics Assessment with a goal to identify air toxics which are of greatest concern, in terms of contribution to population inhalation risk. The results will be used to set priorities for the collection of additional air toxics emissions and monitoring data. Expanded ambient air toxics monitoring will take the form of a national air toxics monitoring network. With all monitoring data, however, comes uncertainty in the form of environmental variability (spatial and temporal) and monitoring error (sample collection and laboratory analysis). With this in mind, existing data from the Urban Air Toxics Monitoring Program (UATMP) were analyzed to obtain a general understanding of these sources of variability and then provide recommendations for managing the data uncertainties of a national network. The results indicate that environmental variability, in particular temporal, comprises most of the overall variability observed in the UATMP data. However, at lower ambient levels (on the order of 0.1–0.5 ppbv or lower) environmental variability tends to dissipate and monitoring error takes over, most notably analytical error. Overall, the results suggest that common techniques in ambient air toxics monitoring for carbonyls and volatile organic compounds may satisfy many of the primary objectives of a national air toxics monitoring network.     

Impact of emissions from natural gas production facilities on ambient air quality in the Barnett Shale area: A pilot study

Rapid and extensive development of shale gas resources in the Barnett Shale region of Texas in recent years has created concerns about potential environmental impacts on water and air quality. The purpose of this study was to provide a better understanding of the potential contributions of emissions from gas production operations to population exposure to air toxics in the Barnett Shale region. This goal was approached using a combination of chemical characterization of the volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from active wells, saturation monitoring for gaseous and particulate pollutants in a residential community located near active gas/oil extraction and processing facilities, source apportionment of VOCs measured in the community using the Chemical Mass Balance (CMB) receptor model, and direct measurements of the pollutant gradient downwind of a gas well with high VOC emissions. Overall, the study results indicate that air quality impacts due to individual gas wells and compressor stations are not likely to be discernible beyond a distance of approximately 100 m in the downwind direction. However, source apportionment results indicate a significant contribution to regional VOCs from gas production sources, particularly for lower-molecular-weight alkanes (<C6). Although measured ambient VOC concentrations were well below health-based safe exposure levels, the existence of urban-level mean concentrations of benzene and other mobile source air toxics combined with soot to total carbon ratios that were high for an area with little residential or commercial development may be indicative of the impact of increased heavy-duty vehicle traffic related to gas production

ImplicationsRapid and extensive development of shale gas resources in recent years has created concerns about potential environmental impacts on water and air quality. This study focused on directly measuring the ambient air pollutant levels occurring at residential properties located near natural gas extraction and processing facilities, and estimating the relative contributions from gas production and motor vehicle emissions to ambient VOC concentrations. Although only a small-scale case study, the results may be useful for guidance in planning future ambient air quality studies and human exposure estimates in areas of intensive shale gas production.     

Sampling Frequency Guidance for Ambient Air Toxics Monitoring

Abstract

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of designing a national network to monitor hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), also known as air toxics. The purposes of the expanded monitoring are to (1) characterize ambient concentrations in representative areas; (2) provide data to support and evaluate dispersion and receptor models; and (3) establish trends and evaluate the effectiveness of HAP emission reduction strategies. Existing air toxics data, in the form of an archive compiled by EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS), are used in this paper to examine the relationship between estimated annual average (AA) HAP concentrations and their associated variability. The goal is to assess the accuracy, or bias and precision, with which the AA can be estimated as a function of ambient concentration levels and sampling frequency. The results suggest that, for several air toxics, a sampling schedule of 1 in 3 days (1:3) or 1:6 days may be appropriate for meeting some of the general objectives of the national network, with the more intense sampling rate being recommended for areas expected to exhibit relatively high ambient levels.     

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air in the Philippines derived from passive sampler with polyurethane foam disk

Passive samplers with polyurethane disks (PUF) were applied in the determination of the concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in ambient air in six residential areas in the Philippines during four simultaneous sampling periods. The uptake profiles of PAHs were determined at one site during one sampling period. Most of the PAHs that were detected in air at concentrations that were significantly higher than their analytical detection limits exhibited a linear uptake trend on the PUF disk. The linear uptake profiles of some high molecular weight (HMW) PAHs were not established and this is attributed to the low concentration of the compounds in air in the gaseous phase. The retention concentrations of phenanthrene-d-10 were determined after depuration in four sampling sites during two sampling periods. The sampling rate for phenanthrene-d-10 was calculated at the linear phase of the uptake using the k_A derived from depuration experiments and the relationship of k_A and sampling rate which was established in a previous passive sampling study. The average sampling rate obtained for phenanthrene d-10 (2.94±0.69 m³ d⁻¹) was applied for derivation of the concentrations of the PAHs in the field samples.The passive sampler with PUF disk and short integration time of 42–56 days is applicable for the derivation of the concentrations of PAHs in ambient air in the Philippines. The concentrations of the organic pollutants derived from the passive sampler showed variability for the six residential areas; reflecting the influence of possible sources of emission of the pollutants at the sites at the different sampling periods. The weather conditions, including the occurrence of a tropical cyclone, increased rainfall and high-relative humidity during the rainy season, had an influence on the concentrations of PAHs derived by the passive sampler.     

Evaluation of an intensive sampling and analysis method for carbon monoxide

This paper describes a portable, low-cost whole air sampler capable of collecting 12 1-L samples in tedlar bags and using a single "D" cell for power. The results are presented from two tests of an intensive sampling and analysis method for measuring ambient carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations in urban areas using this sampler. The method is evaluated in comparison with an approved continuous CO analyzer, in intercomparisons of the results of re-analysis of the samples, and by examination of the results from co-located samplers. The precision of the analytical method was found to be +/-0.30 ppmv. The precision of the sampling method was found to be +/-0.73 ppmv and therefore is the limiting factor in the method's overall precision. These values are sufficient to verify attainment of National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) levels in urban areas. Improvements in the sampler and analytical procedure are discussed.     

A directional passive air sampler for monitoring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in air mass

A passive air sampler was developed for collecting polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in air mass from various directions. The airflow velocity within the sampler was assessed for its responses to ambient wind speed and direction. The sampler was examined for trapped particles, evaluated quantitatively for influence of airflow velocity and temperature on PAH uptake, examined for PAH uptake kinetics, calibrated against active sampling, and finally tested in the field. The airflow volume passing the sampler was linearly proportional to ambient wind speed and sensitive to wind direction. The uptake rate for an individual PAH was a function of airflow velocity, temperature and the octanol-air partitioning coefficient of the PAH. For all PAHs with more than two rings, the passive sampler operated in a linear uptake phase for three weeks. Different PAH concentrations were obtained in air masses from different directions in the field test.     

Impact of three interactive Texas state regulatory programs to decrease ambient air toxic levels

The Federal Clean Air Act (FCAA) framework envisions a federal-state partnership whereby the development of regulations may be at the federal level or state level with federal oversight. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes National Ambient Air Quality Standards to describe “safe” ambient levels of criteria pollutants. For air toxics, the EPA establishes control technology standards for the 187 listed hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) but does not establish ambient standards for HAPs or other air toxics. Thus, states must ensure that ambient concentrations are not at harmful levels. The Texas Clean Air Act authorizes the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the Texas state environmental agency, to control air pollution and protect public health and welfare. The TCEQ employs three interactive programs to ensure that concentrations of air toxics do not exceed levels of potential health concern (LOCs): air permitting, ambient air monitoring, and the Air Pollutant Watch List (APWL). Comprehensive air permit reviews involve the application of best available control technology for new and modified equipment and ensure that permits protect public health and welfare. Protectiveness may be demonstrated by a number of means, including a demonstration that the predicted ground-level concentrations for the permitted emissions, evaluated on a case-by-case and chemical-by-chemical basis, do not cause or contribute to a LOC. The TCEQ's ambient air monitoring program is extensive and provides data to help assess the potential for adverse effects from all operational equipment in an area. If air toxics are persistently monitored at a LOC, an APWL area is established. The purpose of the APWL is to reduce ambient air toxic concentrations below LOCs by focusing TCEQ resources and heightening awareness. This paper will discuss examples of decreases in air toxic levels in Houston and Corpus Christi, Texas, resulting from the interactive nature of these programs.

Implications: Texas recognized through the collection of ambient monitoring data that additional measures beyond federal regulations must be taken to ensure that public health is protected. Texas integrates comprehensive air permitting, extensive ambient air monitoring, and the Air Pollutant Watch List (APWL) to protect the public from hazardous air toxics. Texas issues air permits that are protective of public health and also assesses ambient air to verify that concentrations remain below levels of concern in heavily industrialized areas. Texas developed the APWL to improve air quality in those areas where monitoring indicates a potential concern. This paper illustrates how Texas engaged its three interactive programs to successfully address elevated air toxic levels in Houston and Corpus Christi.     

Atmospheric concentrations of PCDDs/PCDFs in southern California.

A comprehensive air toxics measurements program designed to establish baseline concentrations of atmospheric polychlorinated dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDDs/PCDFs) in the South Coast Air Basin has been completed. The program utilized state-of-the-art air sampling and laboratory analysis techniques (HRGC/HRMS) to quantify the fifteen 2,3,7,8-substituted PCDDs/PCDFs congeners of primary toxicological significance. This study, which included nine discrete sampling sessions between December 1987 and March 1989, provides the first systematic assessment of ambient PCDDs/PCDFs concentrations in the state of California. The highest PCDDs/PCDFs concentrations noted during this study occurred in December 1987. This period was dominated by off-shore air flows, suggesting a regional air mass and transport phenomena. Concentrations of the PCDDs/PCDFs were diminished markedly in subsequent sampling sessions where air flow patterns were primarily of on-shore or of coastal origin. Ambient PCDDs/PCDFs concentrations, expressed as toxic equivalents, were highest during the December 1987 sampling period. The El Toro monitoring site, located approximately 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles, consistently showed the lowest measured ambient PCDDs/PCDFs concentrations and toxic equivalents values. In the majority of the sessions and samples examined the PCDDs/PCDFs congener profiles strongly suggest combustion source influences. Typical of combustion source profiles, 1,2,3,4,6,7,8-HpCDD was the predominant 2,3,7,8-substituted species and most prevalent PCDD after OCDD. The congener of highest toxicological significance, 2,3,7,8-TCDD, was reported below the 10-20 fg/m3 detection limit for most of the ambient air samples selected for analysis.     

Detecting improvement in ambient air toxics: An application to ambient benzene measurements in Houston,Texas

Traditional regulatory methods for evaluating air toxics have several limitations. Two common methods rely either on self-reported industrial emissions from the Toxics Release Inventory or a single summary statistic such as the average or arithmetic mean. A novel statistical approach for detecting overall long term improvement in ambient air quality is demonstrated using measurements of the air toxic benzene evaluated over five years in Houston, Texas. Through trends of seven key statistical measures, long term improvements were detected at more monitors than would have been found using traditional methods while lack of improvement is highlighted at other monitors. This new approach includes analysis of high and low end concentrations, as well as central tendency, evaluated at specific air toxic human health risk thresholds.     

Background concentrations of 18 air toxics for North America

The U.S. Clean Air Act identifies 188 hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), or "air toxics," associated with adverse human health effects. Of these air toxics, 18 were targeted as the most important in a 10-City Pilot Study conducted in 2001 and 2002 as part of the National Air Toxics Trend Sites Program. In the present analysis, measurements available from monitoring networks in North America were used to estimate boundary layer background concentrations and trends of these 18 HAPs. The background concentrations reported in this study are as much as 85% lower than those reported in recent studies of HAP concentrations. Background concentrations of some volatile organic compounds were analyzed for trends at the 95% confidence level; only carbon tetrachloride (CCI4) and tetrachloroethylene decreased significantly in recent years. Remote background concentrations were compared with the one-in-a-million (i.e., 10(6)) cancer benchmarks to determine the possible causes of health risk in rural and remote areas; benzene, chloroform, formaldehyde, and chromium (Cr) fine particulate were higher than cancer benchmark values. In addition, remote background concentrations were found to contribute between 5% and 99% of median urban concentrations.     

New passive samplers for chlorinated semivolatile organic pollutants in ambient air

Two new types of passive samplers were designed and tested on semivolatile organic compounds. The first type (a spiral-rod sampler) consists of a low-density polyethylene membrane acting as a permeation film and a silicone elastomer as the receiving material; the second (a stir-bar sampler) has the same membrane material but a polydimethylsiloxane-coated stir bar acting as the collector phase and installed radially symmetrically in the sampler. The advantages of the new samplers are their simple design, low costs, and their easy processing via thermodesorption coupled with capillary gas chromatography and mass selective detection. In both samplers, the uptake of selected analytes was integrative over exposure periods of up to 384 h. The sampling rates calculated from a laboratory calibration study using the chlorinated semivolatiles hexachlorobenzene, hexachlorocyclohexane isomers and polychlorinated biphenyls ranged from 88.1 ml h-1 for delta-hexachlorocyclohexane to 3443 ml h-1 for 2,2',5,5'-tetrachlorobiphenyl. A field trial at a hazardous waste dump near Bitterfeld, Germany, for up to 21 days combined with periodical determinations of air concentrations using low-volume sampling indicated that the new samplers can in principle be used in the field, although the sampling rates derived from the field results differed considerably from the laboratory findings. Nevertheless the preliminary results suggest that the new sampler types are promising for the long-term air monitoring of semivolatiles.     

Spatial variation of volatile organic compounds in a "Hot Spot" for air pollution

The spatial variations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were characterized in the Village of Waterfront South neighborhood (WFS), a "hot spot" for air toxics in Camden, NJ. This was accomplished by conducting "spatial saturation sampling" for 11 VOCs using 3500 OVM passive samplers at 22 sites in WFS and 16 sites in Copewood/Davis Streets (CDS) neighborhood, an urban reference area located ～1000 m east of the WFS. Sampling durations were 24 and 48 h. For all 3 sampling campaigns (2 in summer and 1 in winter), the spatial variations and median concentrations of toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (TEX) were found significantly higher (p < 0.05) in WFS than in CDS, where the spatial distributions of these compounds were relatively uniform. The highest concentrations of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) (maximum of 159 μg m(-3)) were always found at one site close to a car scrapping facility in WFS during each sampling campaign. The spatial variation of benzene in WFS was found to be marginally higher (p = 0.057) than in CDS during one sampling campaign, but similar in the other two sampling periods. The results obtained from the analyses of correlation among all species and the proximity of sampling site to source indicated that local stationary sources in WFS have significant impact on MTBE and BTEX air pollution in WFS, and both mobile sources and some of the stationary sources in WFS contributed to the ambient levels of these species measured in CDS. The homogenous spatial distributions (%RSD < 24%) and low concentrations of chloroform (0.02-0.23 μg m(-3)) and carbon tetrachloride (0.45-0.51 μg m(-3)) indicated no significant local sources in the study areas. Further, results showed that the sampling at the fixed monitoring site may under- or over-estimate air pollutant levels in a "hot spot" area, suggesting that the "spatial saturation sampling" is necessary for conducting accurate assessment of air pollution and personal exposure in a community with a high density of sources.     

Microenvironmental characteristics important for personal exposures to aldehydes in Sacramento,CA, and Milwaukee,WI

Oxygenated additives in gasoline are designed to decrease the ozone-forming hydrocarbons and total air toxics, yet they can increase the emissions of aldehydes and thus increase human exposure to these toxic compounds. This paper describes a study conducted to characterize targeted aldehydes in microenvironments in Sacramento, CA, and Milwaukee, WI, and to improve our understanding of the impact of the urban environment on human exposure to air toxics. Data were obtained from microenvironmental concentration measurements, integrated, 24-h personal measurements, indoor and outdoor pollutant monitors at the participants' residences, from ambient pollutant monitors at fixed-site locations in each city, and from real-time diaries and questionnaires completed by the technicians and participants. As part of this study, a model to predict personal exposures based on individual time/activity data was developed for comparison to measured concentrations. Predicted concentrations were generally within 25% of the measured concentrations. The microenvironments that people encounter daily provide for widely varying exposures to aldehydes. The activities that occur in those microenvironments can modulate the aldehyde concentrations dramatically, especially for environments such as “indoor at home.” By considering personal activity, location (microenvironment), duration in the microenvironment, and a knowledge of the general concentrations of aldehydes in the various microenvironments, a simple model can do a reasonably good job of predicting the time-averaged personal exposures to aldehydes, even in the absence of monitoring data. Although concentrations of aldehydes measured indoors at the participants' homes tracked well with personal exposure, there were instances where personal exposures and indoor concentrations differed significantly. Key to the ability to predict exposure based on time/activity data is the quality and completeness of the microenvironmental characterizations for the chemicals of interest. Consistent with many earlier studies, personal exposures are difficult to predict using data from regional outdoor monitors.     

Passive sampling of ambient, gaseous air pollutants: an assessment from an ecological perspective

During some past two decades there has been a growing interest among air pollution-vegetation effects-scientists to use passive sampling systems for quantifying ambient, gaseous air pollutant concentrations, particularly in remote and wilderness areas. On the positive side, excluding the laboratory analysis costs, passive samplers are inexpensive, easy to use and do not require electricity to operate. Therefore, they are very attractive for use in regional-scale air quality assessments. Passive samplers allow the quantification of cumulative air pollutant exposures, as total or average pollutant concentrations over a sampling duration. Such systems function either by chemical absorption or by physical adsorption of the gaseous pollutant of interest onto the sampling medium. Selection of a passive sampler must be based on its known or tested characteristics of specificity and linearity of response to the chemical constituent being collected. In addition, the effects of wind velocity, radiation, temperature and relative humidity must be addressed in the context of absorbent/adsorbent performance and sampling rate. Because of all these considerations, passive samplers may provide under- or overestimations of the cumulative exposures, compared to the corresponding data from co-located continuous monitors or active samplers, although such statistical variance can be minimized by taking necessary precautions. On the negative side, cumulative exposures cannot identify short-term (相似文献   

Performance characteristics of PM10 samplers under calm air conditions

The size range of airborne particles that is closely related to specific deposition regions in the human respiratory tract and excess lung burden of these deposited particles is associated with disease. Size-selective sampling, therefore, needs to be performed to assess the related health risks. Performance criteria applied to these samplers must be well characterized in order to provide accurate and reliable results. The PM10 samplers that have been used in place of the total suspended particulate samplers for the collection of ambient air particles are more relevant to potential inhalation hazards. In order to be certified, a PM10 sampler must meet reliable performance specifications, primarily the aerosol penetration test with liquid and solid particles in a wind tunnel (wind speeds of 2, 8, and 24 km/hr). This testing is intended to assure reasonable accuracy in aerosol measurements. However, the sampler performance under calm air conditions has not been well studied. In the present study, the sampling heads of three devices--the Harvard impactor, the Personal Environmental Monitor (PEM), and the Sierra Andersen model 241 dichotomous sampler PM10 inlet head--were tested for aerosol separation efficiency. With the consideration of bias and imprecision of the measurements, five specimens of each type of sampler were chosen for performance testing, repeating the tests 5 times for each specimen. An ultrasonic atomizing nozzle was used to nebulize potassium sodium tartrate tetrahydrate and dioctyl phthalate particles as the solid and liquid challenge aerosols, respectively. The aerosol number concentrations and size distributions upstream and downstream of the samplers were measured by using an aerosizer calibrated against a settling velocity chamber. The results showed that among the samplers tested, the dichotomous sampler PM10 inlet head had the best fit to the PM10 convention, while the other two samplers not only appeared to have a steeper separation-curve slope but also had significant particle bounce when challenged with solid particles. Analysis of variance also confirmed the superiority of the dichotomous samplers. Surface-coating with oil or grease greatly reduced the problem of particle bounce.