Passive indoor air sampling for consumer product chemicals: a field evaluation study

Area of Science:

• Environmental Health
• Analytical Chemistry
• Exposure Science

Background:

• Innovative exposure measurement methods are essential for large-scale environmental health research, especially for semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs).
• Active air sampling (AAS) is effective but costly, necessitating more accessible methods like passive air sampling (PAS).

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and evaluate a novel, compact passive air sampler (PAS) for improved indoor monitoring of SVOCs.
• To assess the performance of the new PAS design against established active air sampling (AAS) methods.

Main Methods:

• A new compact PAS utilizing polyurethane foam (PUF) disks in durable enclosures was developed.
• The novel PAS was co-located with AAS for simultaneous indoor air sampling and SVOC analysis.
• SVOCs were analyzed, and data from PAS and AAS were compared for detection rates, relative abundance agreement, and concentration correlations.

Main Results:

• The new PAS detected most targeted SVOCs (27 of 33) identified by AAS.
• A strong agreement (R² = 0.88) was observed between PAS and AAS for characterizing relative chemical abundance.
• Significant positive correlations were found between PAS and AAS for 14 SVOCs, particularly gas-phase compounds originating from consumer products.

Conclusions:

• The developed compact PAS is a reliable tool for ranking indoor SVOC exposure levels, suitable for epidemiological studies.
• This PAS enables the measurement of previously unmonitored SVOCs like parabens and benzophenones.
• The new PAS design offers a cost-effective and practical complement to existing exposure assessment tools for consumer product chemicals.