Flow-through passive sampler for zinc in freshwaters free from flow pattern, water cationic composition and temperature effects

Abstract

Providing reliable passive sampling results for the time-weighted average concentrations of pollutants in an aquatic system requires the effects of its flow pattern, temperature and composition to be either eliminated or taken into account. This study focused on the elimination of the water cationic composition effect (i.e., cations that compete with Zn2+ in terms of extraction, such as Na+, K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+) and taking into account the temperature effect on the performance of a recently developed Zn2+ flow-through passive sampler (FTPS) that acted independently of the flow pattern. The reliability issues associated with all three environmental variables mentioned above were thus successfu..