Bioanalytical and chemical characterization of organic micropollutant mixtures in long-term exposed passive samplers from the Joint Danube Survey 4: Setting a baseline for water quality monitoring.

Monitoring methodologies reflecting the long-term quality and contamination of surface waters are needed to obtain a representative picture of pollution and identify risk drivers. This study sets a baseline for characterizing chemical pollution in the Danube River using an innovative approach, combining continuous three-months use of passive sampling technology with comprehensive chemical (747 chemicals) and bioanalytical (seven in vitro bioassays) assessment during the Joint Danube Survey (JDS4). This is one of the world's largest investigative surface-water monitoring efforts in the longest river in the European Union, which water after riverbank filtration is broadly used for drinking water production. Two types of passive samplers, silicone rubber (SR) sheets for hydrophobic compounds and AttractSPETM HLB disks for hydrophilic compounds, were deployed at nine sites for approximately 100 days. The Danube River pollution was dominated by industrial compounds in SR samplers and by industrial compounds together with pharmaceuticals and personal care products in HLB samplers. Comparison of the Estimated Environmental Concentrations with Predicted No-Effect Concentrations revealed that at the studied sites, at least one (SR) and 4-7 (HLB) compound(s) exceeded the risk quotient of 1. We also detected AhR-mediated activity, oxidative stress response, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma-mediated activity, estrogenic, androgenic, and anti-androgenic activities using in vitro bioassays. A significant portion of the AhR-mediated and estrogenic activities could be explained by detected analytes at several sites, while for the other bioassays and other sites, much of the activity remained unexplained. The effect-based trigger values for estrogenic and anti-androgenic activities were exceeded at some sites. The identified drivers of mixture in vitro effects deserve further attention in ecotoxicological and environmental pollution research. This novel approach using long-term passive sampling provides a representative benchmark of pollution and effect potentials of chemical mixtures for future water quality monitoring of the Danube River and other large water bodies.

Performance evaluation of a diffusive hydrogel-based passive sampler for monitoring of polar organic compounds in wastewater.

An upscaled passive sampler variant (diffusive hydrogel-based passive sampler; HPS) based on diffusive gradients in thin films for polar organic compounds (o-DGT) with seven times higher surface area (22.7 cm2) than a typical o-DGT sampler (3.14 cm2) was tested in several field studies. HPS performance was tested in situ within a calibration study in the treated effluent of a municipal wastewater treatment plant and in a verification study in the raw municipal wastewater influent. HPS sampled integratively for up to 14 days in the effluent, and 8 days in the influent. Sampling rates (Rs) were derived for 44 pharmaceuticals and personal care products, 3 perfluoroalkyl substances, 2 anticorrosives, and 21 pesticides and metabolites, ranging from 6 to 132 mL d-1. Robustness and repeatability of HPS deteriorated after exposures longer than 14 days due to microbial and physical damage of the diffusive agarose layer. In situ Rs values for the HPS can be applied to estimate the aqueous concentration of the calibrated polar organic compounds in wastewater within an uncertainty factor of four. When accepting this level of accuracy, the HPS can be applied for monitoring trends of organic micropollutants in wastewater.

Inter-laboratory mass spectrometry dataset based on passive sampling of drinking water for non-target analysis.

Non-target analysis (NTA) employing high-resolution mass spectrometry is a commonly applied approach for the detection of novel chemicals of emerging concern in complex environmental samples. NTA typically results in large and information-rich datasets that require computer aided (ideally automated) strategies for their processing and interpretation. Such strategies do however raise the challenge of reproducibility between and within different processing workflows. An effective strategy to mitigate such problems is the implementation of inter-laboratory studies (ILS) with the aim to evaluate different workflows and agree on harmonized/standardized quality control procedures. Here we present the data generated during such an ILS. This study was organized through the Norman Network and included 21 participants from 11 countries. A set of samples based on the passive sampling of drinking water pre and post treatment was shipped to all the participating laboratories for analysis, using one pre-defined method and one locally (i.e. in-house) developed method. The data generated represents a valuable resource (i.e. benchmark) for future developments of algorithms and workflows for NTA experiments.

Unraveling the Relationship between the Concentrations of Hydrophobic Organic Contaminants in Freshwater Fish of Different Trophic Levels and Water Using Passive Sampling.

The concentrations of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) in aquatic biota are used for compliance, as well as time and spatial trend monitoring in the aqueous environment (European Union water framework directive, OSPAR). Because of trophic magnification in the food chain, the thermodynamic levels of HOCs, for example, polychlorinated biphenyl congeners, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, and brominated diphenyl ether congeners, in higher trophic level (TL) organisms are expected to be strongly elevated above those in water. This work compares lipid-based concentrations at equilibrium with the water phase derived from aqueous passive sampling (CL⇌water) with the lipid-based concentrations in fillet and liver of fish (CL) at different TLs for three water bodies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The CL values of HOCs in fish were near CL⇌water, only after trophic magnification up to TL = 4. For fish at lower TL, CL progressively decreased relative to CL⇌water as KOW of HOCs increased above 106. The CL value decreasing toward the bottom of the food chain suggests nonequilibrium for primary producers (algae), which is in agreement with modeling passive HOC uptake by algae. Because trophic magnification and the resulting CL in fish exhibit large natural variability, CL⇌water is a viable alternative for monitoring HOCs using fish, showing a twofold lower confidence range and requiring less samples.