Passive Sampling of Water and Porous Media for Monitoring of Organic Pollutants

Abstract

Passive sampling techniques have been increasingly used to evaluate pollution of various environmental compartments. In many studies, fish and other aquatic biota have been monitored to assess the bioavailable fraction of pollutants. This review discusses the potential of two types of passive sampling devices (SPMD and Chemcatcher), which may serve as an efficient tool for monitoring of environmental pollutants, such as organochlorine pesticides (OCP), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in river waters, sediments and soil. Purification of SPMD extracts was performed by gel permeation chromatography (GPC). For identification and quantification GC/MS was used. Passive sampling devices are suitable tools for routine monitoring of environmental pollution enabling the examination of environmental matrices without repeated sampling and analyzing high water volumes.