Calibration of Polyurethane Foam (PUF) Disk Passive Air Samplers for Quantitative Sampling of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) in Indoor Air

Abstract

In order to employ PUF disk passive air sampler (140 mm diameter, 12 mm thickness) as a quantitative sampling device a set of calibration experiments were carried out. Time integrated indoor air concentrations of PCBs and PBDEs were obtained from a low volume air sampler. The low volume active sampler was run alongside the passive samplers throughout the calibration period in an office microenvironment. Sampling rates of routinely employed passive sampler design were determined for 51 PCB and 6 PBDE congeners detected in all calibration samples. PUF disk R-values varied from 0.63 to 1.54 m3 day-1 for individual PCBs and from 1.1 to 1.9 m3 day-1 for PBDE congeners. The theory of passive sampling is also discussed and mass transfer coefficients (kA) of PCB and PBDE congeners provided.

Keywords

• Passive air sampling
• PUF disks
• Passive sampling rates
• Calibration