Passive sampling: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:05, 23 May 2025

Revision as of 16:03, 13 July 2025

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==Advantages==

Contaminant concentrations from passive sampling reflect average contamination throughout the sampler deployment time, meaning the sample will capture contaminant concentration fluctuations over the whole deployment period. Traditional grab sampling does not do this, since collected samples only represent a single moment in time and multiple grab samples must be taken to observe variation in contaminant concentrations over time.<ref name = Main /> This integrative sampling method can also can result in the detection of chemicals present at such low concentrations that they would be undetected in a grab sample, due to concentration of the chemicals on the sampler over time. As a result, passive sampling has the potential to be a less time-intensive, less expensive and more accurate sampling method than grab sampling.

In addition, passive samplers are often easy to use and deploy, have no pumps or moving parts, and do not require electricity, since they rely on the [[molecular diffusion]] of contaminants or binding of contaminants to agents within the samplers, unlike active sampling.<ref name = Sigma /> They may also be inexpensive and simple to construct, such as SLMDs, which only require sealed plastic tubing and two chemical components.<ref name = Brumbaugh />