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EVALUATION OF PASSIVE SAMPLING POLYMERS AND NON-EQUILIBRIUM ADJUSTMENT METHODS IN A MULTI-YEAR SURVEILLANCE OF SEDIMENT POREWATER PCBs
Sanders, J.P., N.A. Andrade, and U. Ghosh.
Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry [Published online 5 Jul 2018 ahead of print]

Several different methods of accounting for passive sampler nonequilibrium using performance reference compounds (PRCs) have been proposed, and this study explores the practical impacts of these methods in an applied context using results from a multi-year passive sampling surveillance of PCB concentrations in sediment pore water at a contaminated marsh amended with activated carbon (AC) sorbent materials. In a series of five sampling events spanning almost two yr, polyoxymethylene and polyethylene samplers were deployed and pore water concentrations were calculated with five different PRC adjustment methods. The results provide a basis for evaluating amendment performance by showing reductions of 34-97% in amended sediment pore water concentrations. They also provide a quantitative underpinning for discussions of the differences between sampling polymers, selection of PRCs, generation of high-resolution vertical profiles of pore water concentrations, and a comparison of PRC adjustment methods. For unamended sediment, older methods based on first-order kinetics agreed well with a recently developed method based on diffusion into and out of sediment beds; however, the sediment diffusion method did not work well for the AC-amended sediments.



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