Characterization of performance reference compound kinetics and analyte sampling rate corrections under three flow...

Performance reference compounds (PRCs) can be spiked into passive samplers prior to deployment. If the dissipation kinetics of PRCs from the sampler corresponds to analyte accumulation kinetics, then PRCs can be used to estimate in-situ sampling rates, which may vary depending on environmental conditions. Under controlled laboratory conditions, the effectiveness of PRC corrections on prediction accuracy of water concentrations were evaluated using nylon organic chemical integrative samplers (NOCIS). Results from PRC calibrations suggest that PRC elimination occurs faster under higher flow conditions; however, minimal differences were observed for PRC elimination between fast flow (9.3cm/s) and slow flow (5.0cm/s) conditions. Moreover, minimal differences were observed for PRC elimination from Dowex Optipore L-493; therefore, PRC corrections did not improve results for NOCIS configurations containing Dowex Optipore L-493. Regardless, results suggest that PRC corrections were beneficial for NOCIS configurations containing Oasis HLB; however, due to differences in flow dependencies of analyte sampling rates and PRC elimination rates across the investigated flow regimes, the use of multiple PRC corrections was necessary. As such, a "Best-Fit PRC" approach was utilized for Oasis HLB corrections using caffeine-(13)C3, DIA-d5, or no correction based on the relative flow dependencies of analytes and these PRCs. Although PRC corrections reduced the variability when in-situ conditions differed from laboratory calibrations (e.g. static versus moderate flow), applying PRC corrections under similar flow conditions increases variability in estimated values.