A field intercomparison of three passive air samplers for gaseous mercury in ambient air

作者：Attilio Naccarato, Antonella Tassone, Maria Martino, Sacha Moretti, Antonella Macagnano, Emiliano Zampetti, Paolo Papa, Joshua Avossa, Nicola Pirrone, Michelle Nerentorp, John Munthe, Ingvar Wängberg, Geoff W. Stupple, Carl P. J. Mitchell, Adam R. Martin, A. Steffen, Diana Babi, Eric M. Prestbo, Francesca Sprovieri, Frank Wania · 发表于：Atmospheric measurement techniques · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.5194/amt-14-3657-2021 · 被引用次数：34 · 研究领域：Mercury impact and mitigation studies、Air Quality and Health Impacts、Toxic Organic Pollutants Impact

Abstract. Passive air samplers (PASs), which provide time-averaged concentrations of gaseous mercury over the timescale of weeks to months, are promising for filling a gap in the monitoring of atmospheric mercury worldwide. Their usefulness will depend on their ease of use and robustness under field conditions, their availability and affordability, and most notably, their ability to provide results of acceptable precision and accuracy. Here we describe a comparative evaluation of three PASs with respect to their ability to precisely and accurately record atmospheric background mercury concentrations at sites in both southern Italy and southern Ontario, Canada. The study includes the CNR-PAS with gold nanoparticles as a sorbent, developed by the Italian National Research Council, the IVL-PAS using an activated carbon-coated disk, developed by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute, and the MerPAS® using a sulfur-impregnated activated carbon sorbent, developed at the University of Toronto and commercialized by Tekran. Detection limits are deduced from the variability in the amount of mercury quantified in more than 20 field blank samples for each PAS. Analytical and sampling precision is quantified through 22 triplicate deployments for each PAS, ranging in duration from 2 to 12 weeks. Accuracy and bias are assessed through comparison with gaseous elemental mercury concentrations recorded by Tekran 2537 automated mercury analyzers operating alongside the PASs at both locat...