Assessing the transport of PAH in the surficial sediment layer by passive sampler approach

International audienceA new method based on passive samplers has been developed to assess the diffusive flux of fluorene, fluoranthene and pyrene in the sediment bed and across the sediment-water interface. The dissolved compound concentration gradient in the sediment in the vertical direction was measured at the outlet of a storm water pond by using polyethylene strips as passive samplers. Simultaneously, the dissipation of a set of tracer compounds preloaded in the passive samplers was measured to estimate the effective diffusion coefficients of the pollutants in the sediment. Both measurements were used to evaluate the diffusive flux of the compounds according to Fick's first law. The diffusive fluxes of the 3 studied compounds have been estimated with a centimetre-scale resolution in the upper 44 cm of the sediment. According to the higher compound diffusion coefficient and the steeper concentration gradient in the surficial sediment layer, the results show that the net flux of compounds near the sediment interface (1 cm depth) is on average 500 times higher than in the deep sediment, with average fluxes at 1 cm depth on the order of 5, 0.1 and 0.1 ng/m2/y for fluorene, fluoranthene and pyrene, respectively