Evaluation of a Passive Sampling Method for Long-Term Continuous Monitoring of Volatile Organic Compounds in Urban Environments.

Environmental Protection Agency Method 325 was developed for continuous passive monitoring of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particularly benzene, at petroleum refinery fencelines. In this work, a modified version of the method was evaluated at an Ontario near-road research station in winter to assess its suitability for urban air quality monitoring. Samples were collected at 24 hour and 14 day resolution to investigate accuracy for different exposure times. Tubes were analyzed by thermal desorption-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and 11 VOCs were quantified, including aromatic air toxics. The same VOCs were simultaneously monitored using traditional canister sampling for comparison, and a subset of four were also monitored using a novel miniature gas chromatograph. Good agreement (within 10%) was observed between the 14 day passive tube samples and the canister samples for benzene. However, field-calibrated uptake rates were required to correct passive tube concentrations for less volatile aromatics. Passive tube deployment and analysis is inexpensive; sampling does not require power, and accurate measurements of benzene are demonstrated here for an urban environment. The method is expected to be advantageous for the generation of long-term continuous benzene datasets suitable for epidemiological research with greater spatial coverage than is currently available using traditional monitoring techniques.

A theory of ventilation estimate over hypothetical urban areas.

Urban roughness is a major factor governing the flows and scalar transport in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) but our understanding is rather limited. The ventilation and pollutant removal of hypothetical urban areas consisting of various types of street canyons are examined using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The aerodynamic resistance, ventilation efficiency, and pollutant removal are measured by the friction factor f, air exchange rate (ACH), and pollutant exchange rate (PCH), respectively. Two source configurations of passive tracer, ground-level-only (Tracer 0) and all-solid-boundary (Tracer 1) are employed to contrast their transport behavior. It is found that the ventilation and pollutant removal are largely attributed to their turbulent components (over 60%). Moreover, with a consistent support from analytical solution and CFD results, the turbulent ACH is a linear function of the square root of the friction factor (ACH'∝f(1/2)) regardless of building geometry. Tracer 0 and Tracer 1 exhibit diversified removal behavior as functions of friction factor so analytical parameterizations have not yet been developed. In view of the large portion of aged air removal by turbulence, it is proposed that the aerodynamic resistance can serve as an estimate to the minimum ventilation efficiency of urban areas.