Passive air samplers based on ceramic adsorbent for monitoring of organochlorine pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls in outdoor air

Abstract Carbon based foams have recently gained attention in environmental fields and in pollutants adsorption in particular. Therefore, in this work, three carbon-based foams were compared for their ability to act as efficient sorbent of passive samplers for air pollution monitoring. These foams included, silicon carbides (SiC) foams, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphite felts (GFs). The matrices were first subjected to laboratory assessment against polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHS), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). Results showed that SiC foams generated the highest peak areas among others especially for PAHs analysis. Therefore, matrix effects’ testing was done for GFs and CNTs by comparing the relative peak areas they generate if samples were spiked before or after the extraction. Obtained results showed a high matrix effect for CNT disabling them to desorb the retained PAHs. After this, a sampling campaign was conducted in order to validate the efficiency of GFs and SiC foams in field assessment by comparing them to XAD®-2 resin. Finally, the obtained results validate each other proving the efficiency of both SiC foams and GFs in such assessments. However, the physical properties of SiC foams favour its choice for the synthesis of a novel passive sampler.