Relative sensitivity factor process

Vieth and Huneke have recendy presented a thorough discussion of GDMS quantitation, including the measurement of relative GDMS sensitivity factors and a modeling of glow-discharge source processes to enable semiempirical estimates of... 

If the primary loss mechanism of atmospheric reaction is accepted as having a 17h half-life, the D value is 1.6 x 109 mol/Pah. For any other process to compete with this would require a value of at least 108 mol/Pah. This is achieved by advection (4 x 10s), but the other processes range in D value from 19 (advection in bottom sediment) to 1.5 x 10s (reaction in water) and are thus a factor of over 100 or less. The implication is that the water reaction rate constant would have to be increased 100-fold to become significant. The soil rate constant would require an increase by 104 and the sediment by 10s. These are inconceivably large numbers corresponding to very short half-lives, thus the actual values of the rate constants in these media are relatively unimportant in this context. They need not be known accurately. The most sensitive quantity is clearly the atmospheric reaction rate. 

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