Nontargeted Calibration: A Novel Method for Understanding Uptake Kinetics of Diverse Compounds Using Passive Air Samplers

Conventional calibration of passive air samplers (PASs) is limited by the accessibility of analytical standards required for quantifying mass in targeted analysis. Here, we introduce a method using relative peak areas measured with nontargeted analysis to approximate PAS uptake rates for diverse features. We tested the approach with mesh-sheltered polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) foam and glass fiber filter (GFF) PASs. Generic uptake rates were 1.16 ± 0.34 m 3 day –1 dm –2 for 67 features measured in PDMS foam and 0.50 ± 0.33 m 3 day –1 dm –2 for 48 features measured in GFF, comparable to uptake rates from the targeted calibration literature. The generic uptake rate for PDMS-Mesh showed low variability (relative standard deviation─RSD = 29%) with no relationship to predicted physical–chemical properties. The generic rate for GFF-Mesh was instead 0.61 ± 0.20 m 3 day –1 dm –2 when including only features with predicted log octanol-air partition ratios (K OA s) < 8.5 log units, showing decreased variability (from 66% to 32% RSD). Specific uptake rates should be used for features with K OA s > 8.5 log units measured on GFF-Mesh. Our results demonstrate that nontargeted calibration can characterize PAS uptake for diverse compounds comparably to targeted calibration, which will expand our understanding of uptake kinetics without requiring analytical standards.