title: Evaluation of in-situ calibration of Chemcatcher passive samplers for 322 micropollutants in agricultural and urban affected rivers.
abstract: In a large field study, the in-situ calibration of the Chemcatcher(®) passive sampler - styrenedivinylbenzene (SDB) covered by a polyether sulfone (PES) membrane - was evaluated for 322 polar organic micropollutants. Five rivers with different agricultural and urban influences were monitored from March to July 2012 with two methods i) two-week time-proportional composite water samples and ii) two-week passive sampler deployment. All substances - from different substance classes with logKow -3 to 5, and neutral, anionic, cationic, and zwitterionic species - were analyzed by liquid-chromatography high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry. This study showed that SDB passive samplers are well-suited for the qualitative screening of polar micropollutants because the number of detected substances was similar (204 for SDB samples vs. 207 for composite water samples), limits of quantification were comparable (median: 1.3 ng/L vs. 1.6 ng/L), and the handling in the field and laboratory is fast and easy. The determination of in-situ calibrated sampling rates (field Rs) was possible for 88 compounds where the R(2) from the regression (water concentration vs. sampled mass on SDB disk) was >0.75. Substances with moderately fluctuating river concentrations such as pharmaceuticals showed much better correlations than substances with highly fluctuating concentrations such as pesticides (R(2) > 0.75 for 93% and 60% of the investigated substances, respectively). Flow velocity (0.05-0.8 m/s) and temperature (5-20 °C) did not have an evident effect on the field Rs. It was observed that ionic species had significantly lower field Rs than neutral species. Due to the complexity of the different transport processes, a correlation between determined field Rs and logDow could only predict Rs with large uncertainties. We conclude that only substances with relatively constant river concentrations can be quantified accurately in the field by passive sampling if substance-specific Rs are determined. For that purpose, the proposed in-situ calibration is a very robust method and the substance specific Rs can be used in future monitoring studies in rivers with similar environmental conditions (i.e., flow velocity, temperature, pH).
authors: Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland; Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors: Christoph
authors: C
authors: Moschet
authors: Swiss Centre for Applied Ecotoxicology Eawag-EPFL, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland.
authors: Etiënne L M
authors: EL
authors: Vermeirssen
authors: Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland.
authors: Heinz
authors: H
authors: Singer
authors: Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland.
authors: Christian
authors: C
authors: Stamm
authors: Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland; Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland. Electronic address: juliane.hollender@eawag.ch.
authors: Juliane
authors: J
authors: Hollender
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D002138:Calibration; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D009930:Organic Chemicals / Q000032:analysis*; D010575:Pesticides / Q000032:analysis; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000032:analysis; D045483:Rivers / Q000737:chemistry; D013557:Switzerland; D013696:Temperature; D014872:Water Movements; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D009930:Organic Chemicals; D010575:Pesticides; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Liquid chromatography high resolution mass spectrometry; Monitoring; Pesticides; Pharmaceuticals; Styrenedivinylbenzene; Surface water