Development, Validation, Uptake Rate Modeling and Field Applications of a New Permeation Passive Sampler

Abstract

Passive air sampling techniques are an attractive alternative to active air sampling because of the lower costs, simple deployment and retrieval methods, minimum training requirements, no need for power sources, etc.. Because of their advantages, passive samplers are now widely used not only for water and indoor, outdoor and workplace air analysis, but also for soil-gas sampling required for various purposes, including vapor intrusion studies, contamination mapping and remediation. A simple and cost effective permeation-type passive sampler, invented in our laboratory, was further developed and validated during this project. The sampler is based on a 1.8 mL crimp-cap gas chromatography autosampler vial equipped with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane and filled with a carbon based adsorbent. Apart from the low material costs of the sampler and ease of fabrication, the design allows for potential automation of the extraction and chromatographic analysis for high-throughput analysis. The use of highly non-polar PDMS reduces water uptake into the sampler and reduces early adsorbent saturation. The thermodynamic properties of PDMS result in moderately low sampling rate effects with temperature variations. Further, the use of PDMS allows for easy estimation of the uptake-rates based on the physicochemical properties of the analytes such as retention indices determined using capillary columns coated with PDMS stationary phase. In the thesis, the theoretical and practical aspects of the new design with regards to uptake kinetics modeling and the dependence of the calibration constants on temperature, humidity, linear flow velocity of air across the sampler surface, sampler geometry, sampling duration, and analyte concentrations are discussed. The permeability of polydimethylsiloxane toward various analytes, as well as thermodynamic parameters such as the energy of activation of permeation through PDMS membranes was determined. Finally, many applications of the passive samplers developed in actual field locations, vital for the field validation and future regulatory acceptance are presented. The areas of application of the samplers include indoor and outdoor air monitoring, horizontal and vertical soil-gas contamination profiling and vapour intrusion studies.