A continuous supply of water with defined stable concentrations of hydrophobic chemicals is a requirement in a range of laboratory tests such as the OECD 305 protocol for determining the bioconcentration factor in fish. Satisfying this requirement continues to be a challenge, particularly for hydrophobic chemicals. Here we present a novel solution based on equilibrium passive dosing. It employs a commercially available unit consisting of similar to 16000 polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) tubes connected to two manifolds. The chemicals are loaded into the unit by repeatedly perfusing it with a methanol solution of the substances that is progressively diluted with water. Thereafter the unit is perfused with water and the chemicals partition from the unit into the water. The system was tested with nine chemicals with logK(ow) ranging from 4.1 to 6.3. The aqueous concentrations generated were shown to be largely independent of the water flow rate, and the unit to unit reproducibility was within a factor of similar to 2. In continuous flow experiments the aqueous concentrations of most of the study chemicals remained constant over 8 d. A model was assembled that allows prediction of the operating characteristics of the system from the logKow or PDMS/water partition coefficient of the chemical. The system is a simple, safe, predictable and flexible tool that generates stable aqueous concentrations of hydrophobic chemicals.
Semi-volatile persistent organic pollutants (POPs) cycle between the atmosphere and terrestrial surfaces; however measuring fluxes of POPs between the atmosphere and other media is challenging. Sampling times of hours to days are required to accurately measure trace concentrations of POPs in the atmosphere, which rules out the use of eddy covariance techniques that are used to measure gas fluxes of major air pollutants. An alternative, the modified Bowen ratio (MBR) method, has been used instead. In this study we used data from FLUXNET for CO2 and water vapor (H2O) to compare fluxes measured by eddy covariance to fluxes measured with the MBR method using vertical concentration gradients in air derived from averaged data that simulate the long sampling times typically required to measure POPs. When concentration gradients are strong and fluxes are unidirectional, the MBR method and the eddy covariance method agree within a factor of 3 for CO2, and within a factor of 10 for H2O. To remain within the range of applicability of the MBR method, field studies should be carried out under conditions such that the direction of net flux does not change during the sampling period. If that condition is met, then the performance of the MBR method is neither strongly affected by the length of sample duration nor the use of a fixed value for the transfer coefficient.
A method intercomparison study of analytical methods for the determination of neutral, volatile polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) was carried out in March, 2006. Environmental air samples were collected in triplicate at the European background site Mace Head on the west coast of Ireland, a site dominated by 'clean' westerly winds coming across the Atlantic. Extraction and analysis were performed at two laboratories active in PFAS research using their in-house methods. Airborne polyfluorinated telomer alcohols (FTOHs), fluo ooctane sulfonamides and sulfonamidoethanols (FOSAs/FOSEs) as well as additional polyfluorinated compounds were investigated. Different native and isotope-labelled internal standards (IS) were applied at various Steps in the analytical procedure to evaluate the different quantification strategies. Field blanks revealed no major blank problems. European background concentrations observed at Mace Head were found to be in a similar range to Arctic data reported in the literature. Due to trace-levels at the remote site, only FTCH data sets were complete and could therefore be compared between the laboratories. Additionally, FOSEs Could Partly be included. Data comparison revealed that despite the challenges inherent in analysis of airborne PFAS and the low concentrations, all methods applied in this Study obtained similar results. However, application of isotope-labelled IS early in the analytical procedure leads to more precise results and is therefore recommended.
Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of industrial chemicals, some of which have been produced for over 50 years. Scarcely one decade ago, their ubiquity in wildlife, humans and the global environment was discovered. This urged the need for robust and reliable, yet very sensitive analytical methods allowing for their determination in various matrices. This article reviews the state-of-the-art in trace analysis of ionic and neutral PFAS in humans as well as environmental samples such as wildlife, water, solid matrices and air. Analytical protocols for PFAS determination in food and consumer products are also included. The methods are critically discussed in terms of their advantages, shortcomings, possibilities, limitations, and potential for further development.
Lipids are the major sorptive phase for many organic chemicals that bioaccumulate in foodwebs. However, lipids are usually operationally defined by the extraction protocol. Large differences in sorptive capacities between species would violate assumptions implicit in widely used lipid-normalization procedures and invalidate generic bioaccumulation factors. We extracted lipids from five species from different trophic levels and domains and determined fractions of triglycerides, phospholipids, and cholesterol. We passively dosed the lipids with cyclic volatile methylsiloxanes and chlorobenzenes via headspace from spiked olive oil to determine their sorptive capacities. Lipids from seal blubber and pork bacon solely composed of triglycerides had capacities similar to that of olive oil; lipids from mussels, herring, and guillemot egg had quantifiable fractions of phospholipids and cholesterol and showed capacities reduced by factors of up to 2.3-fold. Generally, the sorptive capacities of the lipids were not elevated relative to the olive oil controls and are unlikely to explain a substantial part of biomagnification.
Equilibrium partitioning (EqP) theory is currently the most widely used approach for linking sediment pollution by persistent hydrophobic organic chemicals to bioaccumulation. Most applications of the EqP approach assume (I) a generic relationship between organic carbon-normalized chemical concentrations in sediments and lipid-normalized concentrations in biota and (II) that bioaccumulation does not induce levels exceeding those expected from equilibrium partitioning. Here, we demonstrate that assumption I can be obviated by equilibrating a silicone sampler with chemicals in sediment, measuring chemical concentrations in the silicone, and applying lipid/silicone partition ratios to yield concentrations in lipid at thermodynamic equilibrium with the sediment (C-Lip(sic)Sed). Furthermore, we evaluated the validity of assumption II by comparing C-Lip(sic)Sed of selected persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic pollutants (polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB)) to lipid-normalized concentrations for a range of biota from a Swedish background lake. PCBs in duck mussels, roach, eel, pikeperch, perch and pike were mostly below the equilibrium partitioning level relative to the sediment, i.e., lipid-normalized concentrations were <= C-Lip(sic)Sed, whereas HCB was near equilibrium between biota and sediment. Equilibrium sampling allows straightforward, sensitive and precise measurement of C-Lip(sic)Sed. We propose C-Lip(sic)Sed as a metric of the thermodynamic potential for bioaccumulation of persistent organic chemicals from sediment useful to prioritize management actions to remediate contaminated sites.
The partitioning of non-polar analytes into the silicone polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is the basis for many analytical approaches such as solid phase microextraction (SPME), stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) and environmental passive sampling. Recently, the methods have been applied to increasingly complex sample matrices. The present work investigated the possible effect of complex matrices on the sorptive properties of PDMS. First, SPME fibers with a 30 mu m PDMS coating were immersed in 15 different matrices, including sediment, suspensions of soil and humic substances, mayonnaise, meat, fish, olive oil and fish oil. Second, the surface of the fibers was wiped clean, and together with matrix-free control fibers, they were exposed via headspace to 7 non-polar halogenated organic chemicals in spiked olive oil. The fibers were then solvent-extracted, analyzed, and the ratios of the mean concentrations in the matrix-immersed fibers to the control fibers were determined for all matrices. These ratios ranged from 92% to 112% for the four analytes with the highest analytical precision (i.e. polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) 3, 28, 52 and brominated diphenyl ether (BDE) 3), and they ranged from 74% to 133% for the other three compounds (i.e. PCBs 101.105 and gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH)). We conclude that, for non-polar, hydrophobic chemicals, the sorptive properties of the PDMS were not modified by the diverse investigated media and consequently that PDMS is suited for sampling of these analytes even in highly complex matrices.
Equilibrium sampling of organic pollutants into the silicone polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has recently been applied in biological tissues including fish. Pollutant concentrations in PDMS can then be multiplied with lipid/PDMS distribution coefficients (D(Lipid.PDMS)) to obtain concentrations in fish lipids. In the present study, PDMS thin films were used for equilibrium sampling of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in intact tissue of two eels and one salmon. A classical exhaustive extraction technique to determine lipid-normalized PCB concentrations, which assigns the body burden of the chemical to the lipid fraction of the fish, was additionally applied. Lipid-based PCB concentrations obtained by equilibrium sampling were 85 to 106% (Norwegian Atlantic salmon), 108 to 128% (Baltic Sea eel), and 51 to 83% (Finnish lake eel) of those determined using total extraction. This supports the validity of the equilibrium sampling technique, while at the same time confirming that the fugacity capacity of these lipid-rich tissues for PCBs was dominated by the lipid fraction. Equilibrium sampling was also applied to homogenates of the same fish tissues. The PCB concentrations in the PDMS were 1.2 to 2.0 times higher in the homogenates (statistically significant in 18 of 21 cases, p < 0.05), indicating that homogenization increased the chemical activity of the PCBs and decreased the fugacity capacity of the tissue. This observation has implications for equilibrium sampling and partition coefficients determined using tissue homogenates.
Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has been used for passive equilibrium sampling in numerous abiotic environmental matrices. Recently, this approach was extended to lipid-rich tissue. This work investigated the possibilities and limitations of using PDMS thin-film extraction for in tissue equilibrium sampling in fish species of varying lipid content. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were used as model lipophilic organic pollutants. PDMS thin-films were inserted in intact fish tissue for differing time periods (1h up to 1 week). The thin-films were then solvent-extracted and the extracts were analyzed using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Whether equilibrium had been established was investigated either by using PDMS thin-films of multiple thicknesses (140-620 microm) or by assessing kinetics by means of time series. Equilibration was found to be rapid (i.e. in the range of hours) in lipid-rich fish whereas equilibrium was not achieved within one week in tissues with low or medium lipid content (i.e. up to 2% lipids). Regarding lipid-rich fish, the newly developed method was found to be sufficiently sensitive to determine equilibrium partitioning concentrations of PCBs in lipids of samples from the Baltic Sea, and it is a promising approach for any kind of fatty tissue.
An equilibrium sampling approach using glass jars with pm thin coatings of the silicone polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was validated and applied to background sediment samples from a >50 km transect in the Stockholm Archipelago. Equilibrium between the sediment and the PDMS was demonstrated using different coating thicknesses. From the concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the PDMS, we assessed (i) freely dissolved concentrations in the sediment interstitial porewater (C-Sediment_free); (ii) the equilibrium brium status between sediment and water; (iii) the equilibrium status between sediment and biota; and (iv) site-specific sediment/water distribution ratios (K-D). The results showed that (i) Stockholm was a source of PCBs to the Baltic Sea as evidenced by significantly higher C-Sediment_free in Stockholm Harbor; (ii) the fugacity in sediment exceeded that in water (monitoring samples collected in February) by an average factor of 4.0; (iii) the fugacity in sediment exceeded that in herring by an average factor of 5.2; and (iv) K-D near Stockholm Harbor was 0.3-1.7 log units greater than in the outer archipelago. The coated glass jar method with its high precision and built-in QA/QC opens new possibilities to study the disposition of hydrophobic chemicals at trace levels (C-Sediment_free down to 1.06 fg/L) in background environments.
Passive equilibrium samplers deployed in two or more media of a system and allowed to come to equilibrium can be viewed as 'chemometers' that reflect the difference in chemical activities of contaminants between the media. We applied silicone-based equilibrium samplers to measure relative chemical activities of seven 'indicator' polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and hexachlorobenzene in eels and sediments from a Swedish lake. Chemical concentrations in eels and sediments were also measured using exhaustive extraction methods. Lipid-normalized concentrations in eels were higher than organic carbon-normalized concentrations in sediments, with biota-sediment accumulation factors (BSAFs) of five PCBs ranging from 2.7 to 12.7. In contrast, chemical activities of the same pollutants inferred by passive sampling were 3.5 to 31.3 times tower in eels than in sediments. The apparent contradiction between BSAFs and activity ratios is consistent with the sorptive capacity of lipids exceeding that of sediment organic carbon from this ecosystem by up to 50-fold. Factors that may contribute to the elevated activity in sediments are discussed, including slower response of sediments than water to reduced emissions, sediment diagenesis and sorption to phytoplankton. The 'chemometer' approach has the potential to become a powerful tool to study the thermodynamic controls on persistent organic chemicals in the environment and should be extended to other environmental compartments.
Mixtures of organic contaminants are ubiquitous ronment. Depending on their persistence and physicochemical properties, individual chemicals that make up the mixture partition and distribute within the environment and might then jointly elicit toxicological effects. For the assessment and monitoring of such mixtures, a variety of cell-based in vitro and low-complexity in vivo bioassays based on algae, daphnids or fish embryos are available. A very important and sometimes unrecognized challenge is how to combine sampling, extraction and dosing to transfer the mixtures from the environment into bioassays, while conserving (or re-establishing) their chemical composition at adjustable levels for concentration-effect assessment. This article outlines various strategies for quantifiable transfer from environmental samples including water, sediment, and biota into bioassays using total extraction or polymer-based passive sampling combined with either solvent spiking or passive dosing.
The sorption of cyclic volatile methyl siloxanes (cVMS) to organic matter has a strong influence on their fate in the aquatic environment. We report new measurements of the partition ratios between freshwater sediment organic carbon and water (K-OC) and between Aldrich humic acid dissolved organic carbon and water (K-DOC) for three cVMS, and for three polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that were used as reference chemicals. Our measurements were made using a purge-and-trap method that employs benchmark chemicals to calibrate mass transfer at the air/water interface in a fugacity-based multimedia model. The measured log K-OC of octamethylcydotetrasiloxane (D-4), decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D-5), and dodecamethylcydohexasiloxane (D-6) were 5.06, 6.12, and 7.07, and log K-DOC were 5.05, 6.13, and 6.79. To our knowledge, our measurements for K-OC of D-6 and K-DOC of D-4 and D-6 are the first reported. Polyparameter linear free energy relationships (PP-LFERs) derived from training sets of empirical data that did not include cVMS generally did not predict our measured partition ratios of cVMS accurately (root-mean-squared-error (RMSE) for logK(OC) 0.76 and for logK(DOC) 0.73). We constructed new PP-LFERs that accurately describe partition ratios for the cVMS as well as for other chemicals by including our new measurements in the existing training sets (logK(OC) RMSEcVMS: 0.09, logk(DOC) RMSEcVMS: 0.12). The PP-LFERs we have developed here should be further evaluated and perhaps recalibrated when experimental data for other siloxanes become available.
Dissolved inorganic salts influence the partitioning of organic chemicals between water and sorbents. We present new measurements of the salting-out constants (Ks) for partition ratios between water and organic carbon (KOC) and between water and dissolved organic carbon (KDOC) of three cyclic volatile methylsiloxanes (cVMS), two linear volatile methylsiloxanes (lVMS), three polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and α-hexachlorocyclohexane (α-HCH). Ks, KOC, and KDOC were derived from volatilization rates of the chemicals from mixtures of water and organic carbon with varying concentrations of sodium chloride in a purge-and-trap system. KOC and KDOC values at different salinities were determined by fitting their values to reproduce observed volatilization rates using a fugacity-based multimedia model and assuming first-order kinetics for volatilization. The Ks values of cVMS and lVMS ranged from 0.16–0.76. The log KOC of cVMS and lVMS in fresh water interpolated from our measurements ranged from 5.20 to 7.36 and the log KDOC values from 5.04 to 6.72. Polyparameter linear free energy relationships (PP-LFERs) trained with data sets without measurements for siloxanes failed to accurately describe the log KOC and log KDOC of cVMS and lVMS. Including our measurements for cVMS and lVMS substantially improved the fit. PP-LFERs trained with data for Ks from solubility measurements do not describe our new measurements well regardless of whether or not they are included in the training set, which may reflect differences in the salting-out effect on partitioning to organic carbon versus on solubility.