Abstract
This paper describes the development of a new artificial turf surrogate surface (ATSS) sampler for use in the measurement of mercury (Hg) dry deposition. In contrast to many existing surrogate surface designs, the ATSS utilizes a three-dimensional deposition surface that may more closely mimic the physical structure of many natural surfaces than traditional flat surrogate surface designs (water, filter, greased Mylar film). The ATSS has been designed to overcome several complicating factors that can impact the integrity of samples with other direct measurement approaches by providing a passive system which can be deployed for both short and extended periods of time (days to weeks), and is not contaminated by precipitation and/or invalidated by strong winds. Performance characteristics including collocated precision, in-field procedural and laboratory blanks were evaluated. The results of these performance evaluations included a mean collocated precision of 9%, low blanks (0.8 ng), high extraction efficiency (97%–103%), and a quantitative matrix spike recovery (100%).
Highlights
In recent years, a growing number of intensive field campaigns and routine measurement networks have provided valuable information on the rates of total mercury (Hg) wet deposition in North America [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
At the end of each sampling period, the site operator placed the turf surface into a 2 L wide-mouth fluorinated high density polyethylene (HDPE) bottle, rinsed the turf sample well with 30 mL 2.2% v/v HNO3 solution to insure that residual dry deposition was washed off into the throughfall collection bottle
The blank data from the Michigan monitoring sites was analyzed separately from blanks collected during the Florida studies
Summary
A growing number of intensive field campaigns and routine measurement networks have provided valuable information on the rates of total mercury (Hg) wet deposition in North America [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. While some engineering approaches have been incorporated into automated water surrogate surface collectors to minimize evaporative water loss [45] and loss of sample solution due to wind [46], the cost, power requirements, and region specific meteorological conditions may restrict the broad application of these solutions. This manuscript describes the development and evaluation of an artificial turf surrogate surface (ATSS) methodology for the measurement of total Hg dry deposition. Mercury dry deposition to the ATSS is calculated by determining the difference between the total Hg deposition measured by the ATSS and a collocated measure of wet-only total Hg deposition
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