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The Houston-Galveston metropolitan area has a relatively high density of point and mobile sources of air toxics, and determining and understanding the relationship between emissions and ambient air concentrations of air toxics is important for evaluating potential impacts on public health and formulating effective regulatory policies to control this impact, both in this region and elsewhere. However, conventional ambient air monitoring approaches are limited with regard to expense, siting limitations, and representative sampling necessary for adequate exposure assessment. The overall goal of this multiphase study is to evaluate the use of simple passive air samplers to determine temporal and spatial variability of the ambient air concentrations of selected volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urban areas. Phase 1 of this study, reported here, was a field evaluation of 3M organic vapor monitors (OVMs) involving limited comparisons with commonly used active sampling methods, an assessment of sampler precision, a determination of optimal sampling duration, and an investigation of the utility of a simple modification of the commercial sampler. The results indicated that a sampling duration of 72 hr exhibited generally low bias relative to automated continuous gas chromatography measurements, good overall precision, and an acceptable number of measurements above detection limits. The modified sampler showed good correlation with the commercial sampler, with higher sampling rates, although lower than expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the performance of Model 3300 Ogawa Passive Nitrogen Dioxide (NO[sub2]) Samplers and 3M 3520 Organic Vapor Monitors (OVMs) by comparing integrated passive sampling concentrations to averaged hourly NO[sub2] and volatile organic compound (VOC) mea-surements at two sites in El Paso, TX. Sampling periods were three time intervals (3-day weekend, 4-day weekday, and 7-day weekly) for three consecutive weeks. OVM concentrations were corrected for ambient pressure to account for higher elevation. Precise results (<5% relative standard deviation, RSD) were found for NO[sub2] measurements from collocated Ogawa samplers. Reproducibility was lower from duplicate OVMs for BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers) VOCs (≥7% RSD for 2-day samples) with better precision for longer sampling periods. Comparison of Ogawa NO[sub2] samplers with chemiluminescence measurements averaged over the same time period suggested potential calibration problems with the chemiluminescence analyzer. For BTEX species, generally good agreement was obtained between OVMs and automated-gas chromatograph (auto-GC) measurements. The OVMs successfully tracked increasing levels of VOCs recorded by the auto-GCs. However, except for toluene, OVM BTEX measurements generally exceeded their continuous counterparts with a mean bias of 5-10%. Although interpretation of the study results was limited due to small sample sizes, diffusion barrier influences caused by shelters that housed OVMs and differences in sampling heights between OVMs and auto-GC inlet may explain the overestimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]