Polymer selection for passive sampling: A comparison of critical properties Tatsiana P. Rusina a, * , Foppe Smedes b , Jana Klanova a , Kees Booij c , Ivan Holoubek a a Masaryk University, Faculty of Sciences, Recetox, Kamenice 126/3, 625 00 Brno, Czech Republic b Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management/RIKZ, P.O. Box 207, 9750 AE Haren, The Netherlands c Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, P.O. Box 59, 1790 AB Texel, The Netherlands Received 9 October 2006; received in revised form 12 January 2007; accepted 12 January 2007 Available online 28 February 2007 Abstract Next to the bi-phasic semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs), single-phase passive samplers are becoming more popular for the sampling of hydrophobic contaminants. We therefore evaluated some critical properties of 13 polymers: low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polyoxymethylene (POM), silicone rubbers (SRs), including polydimethylsiloxane, and ethylene/octene co-polymer (EXACT). Polymer comparison included four critical properties: release of oligomers, swelling in solvents (dichloromethane, hexane, ethyl acetate, acetone and methanol), contaminant diffusion coefficients and partition coefficients for naphthalene, fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene and dibenz[a,h]anthracene. Amounts of extracted oligomers ranged from 2% to 4% for SRs and LDPE, to about 1% for EXACT. No oligomer release was observed for POM. Diffusion coefficients were higher in all SRs compared with LDPE and EXACT. No measurable diffusion was observed in POM after 24 h of exposure. Differences in polymer–water partition coefficients spanned two orders of magnitude, with the lowest values observed for POM and the highest values observed for LDPE and EXACT. For the ten tested SRs, this range was less than 0.4 log units. Transport resistances estimated on the basis of diffusion coefficients and partition coefficients were generally lower for SRs than for LDPE and EXACT. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Single-phase material; Diffusion coefficient; Transport resistance; Partition coefficient; Hydrophobic organic compounds 1. Introduction In the risk assessment of contaminated sites, knowledge of freely dissolved concentrations of hydrophobic contami- nants is important for the prediction of distribution pro- cesses between different environmental compartments. Freely dissolved concentrations can be measured with equi- librium passive sampling devices (Mayer et al., 2003). A number of different passive samplers have been successfully used for environmental monitoring. The bi-phasic triolein-filled semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) have been used for quantifying dissolved hydrophobic contaminants since the 1990’s (Huckins et al., 1990; Petty et al., 2000). It was found that single-phase polymeric materials, such as low-density polyethylene (LDPE), TENAX, polyoxymethylene (POM), and silicone rubber (SR), show similar affinity for hydrophobic com- pounds, compared with SPMDs (Booij et al., 1998; Corne- lissen et al., 2001; Jonker and Koelmans, 2001; Heringa and Hermens, 2003; Mayer et al., 2003; Heltsley et al., 2005). Common features of single-phase passive samplers are their simple construction, their low cost, and the possibility for re-using them. The selection of materials for passive sampler construction should be based on a number of additional characteristics: the amounts of analytical interferences that can be released from the polymer, the 0045-6535/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2007.01.025 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 616 794 210. E-mail address: Tanya-r@yandex.ru (T.P. Rusina). www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere Chemosphere 68 (2007) 1344–1351