Passive air sampling of POPs across Asia: Organochlorine pesticides and PCBs

Abstract

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are a group of synthetic organic chemicals that persist in the environment for a longer period, subsequently bioaccumulate through the food web and pose a significant hazard to humans and wildlife. By virtue of their semi-volatility, they can travel through long distances in the air and water, leading to them being widespread globally, and hence detected in remote regions where they are not, or never have been used1.Most of the air monitoring studies relies on active air samplers such as high volume air samplers (HVAS) used for the collection of POPs in both gaseous and particulate phases. Nowadays, the passive-sampling in the environmental research is getting an increasing attention as an alternative to the expensive and more laborious active- sampling2. It can provide time-integrated samples for air and water. Moreover, during the exposure of passive sampler by a contaminant, the total concentration reflects only the integral amount of analyte and, thus, reduces problems arising from its short time concentration peaks. Passive air samplers (PAS) are cheaper and smaller than that of conventional active samplers, and they do not require the electricity. For this reason, they can be used for the environmental monitoring with a wide range of spatial coverage3,4. Air pollution is a heavy price that many of the Asian nations paying for the rapid development seen in the past few dertue of their semi-volatility, they can travel through long distances in the air and water, leading to them being widespread globally, and hence detected in remote regions where they are not, or never have been used1.Most of the air monitoring studies relies on active air samplers such as high volume air samplers (HVAS) used for the collection of POPs in both gaseous and particulate phases. Nowadays, the passive-sampling in the environmental research is getting an increasing attention as an alternative to the expensive and more laborious active- sampling2. It can provide time-integrated samples for air and water. Moreover, during the exposure of passive sampler by a contaminant, the total concentration reflects only the integral amount of analyte and, thus, reduces problems arising from its short time concentration peaks. Passive air samplers (PAS) are cheaper and smaller than that of conventional active samplers, and they do not require the electricity. For this reason, they can be used for the environmental monitoring with a wide range of spatial coverage3,4. Air pollution is a heavy price that many of the Asian nations paying for the rapid development seen in the past few de