PAHs in Stockholm window films: Evaluation of the utility of window film content as indicator of PAHs in urban air

Abstract

The thin organic film that builds up on the exterior surface of windows has been proposed as a ubiquitously available passive sampler for semi-volatile organic contaminants (SOCs) in urban air. Readily available school windows were sampled in Stockholm city centre and suburban locations in both winter and summer season to evaluate the putative usefulness of this matrix for assessing the integrated load of urban air pollution by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The window-area normalised concentrations indicated more PAH contamination in the winter than in the summer in both the city centre and suburban locations, with highest concentrations in the city centre in the winter (∑PAH 43 451–467 ng m −2). However, normalising the PAH load to the amount of fatty window film, as measured by extractable organic matter (EOM), gave a more homogeneous picture with the EOM-normalised PAH load being inseparable both between summer and winter and between city centre and suburban locations. To evaluate the possibility of quantitatively employing urban window films as a means to provide predicted environmental concentrations of PAHs in air (PEC air), window film–air partition coefficients of PAHs were estimated using a set of coupled linear free energy relationships and physico-chemical properties of PAHs. Assuming dynamic equilibria between PAHs in air and dissolved in the window film, the obtained PEC air from the window films were consistently overestimating the urban vapour-phase PAH concentrations by factors 4–135. This discrepancy is quantitatively consistent with a strong and overwhelming association with black carbon aerosol particles accumulated in the window film. For SOCs that have a lower tendency to associate with black carbon, bulk window film concentrations may work better than for PAHs to estimate their vapour-phase concentrations in urban air.