TESTING PASSIVE SAMPLERS FOR EMERGING CONTAMINANTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN IN NARRAGANSETT BAY

The lack of awareness and abuse of certain chemicals in our daily life, in the past years, has put our health at risk. Among these chemicals are flame retardants (FRs); these are chemicals which are added to flammable materials (for example, fabrics) to avoid or delay a fire. A specific group of FRs, organophosphate esters (OPEs), has been found in different and disturbing concentrations in different places of our ecosystem. This study focused on studying the marine waters of Narragansett Bay, primarily targeting twelve OPEs. Passive samplers, mainly polyethylene sheets (PEs) were compared and characterized using a series of laboratory experiments. Then they were subsequently deployed at different depths and locations of the bay and analyzed for concentrations of OPEs. After extraction, sample analysis was performed by Gas Chromatography coupled with Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS). The data show that these passive samplers can gradually absorb OPEs. In laboratory experiments, we found PEs concentrated nine of the compounds; and the major concentration was from the compound TDBPP with a log of Kpe_w >4. For the bay deployments, PEs were less compatible for the OPEs than the expected, having approximately and order of magnitude in difference in which the major concentration was for the TCDPP compound with almost 6 ng/g and the minor concentration was for TDBPP,TMTP,TEHP and some more that were below the detection value. More analysis should be performed in order to deeply compare these passive samplers in the laboratory as well as in the field.