PUF disk

The independence from a power supply makes PASs popular options for measurements of POCs in the remote alpine atmosphere, but they also limit the temporal resolution that can be achieved. Trying to combine the advantages of both PAS and active samplers, a flow-through sampler (FTS) was recently designed, which requires no external power source, but can sample large volumes of air in fairly short periods of time [18, 19] by rotating into the wind and have it blow through a series of PUF disks. The volume of air sampled can be estimated from wind speed records. The FTS will trap particles, but they cannot be analyzed separately from the gas phase POCs. 

A test of the recovery of 25 xg of PAHs ranging from phenanthrene (PH) to BghiP was performed by passing clean air through the spiked filter followed by two PUF disks for 24 h (the temperature was unstated). Except for PH, PAHs volatilized from the GF filter were 90-95% trapped and recovered from the PUF plugs. The losses of BghiP and BaP from the filter were 0 and 3%, respectively (79). 

Galasyn et al. (80) made a similar evaluation with Pallflex quartz filters backed by PUF disks sampling in New Hampshire. For winter samples collected with an average temperature of 9 °C, the percentages found on PUF for BaA and BaP were 10 and 0%, respectively. During summer, these percentages were about 75 and 0%, respectively. 

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