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TENTATIVE AIR CONCENTRATIONS OF PAH, PCB AND
ORGANOCHLORINE PESTICIDES IN URBAN AREA OF
KAUNAS, LITHUANIA Audrone Zaliauskiene, Ilona
Jegorova, Per-Anders Bergqvist Environmental
Engineering, Kaunas University of Technology,
Kaunas, Lithuania Environmental Chemistry,
Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Umeå
Kaunas
Introduction The purpose of this work was to
carry out a single three week monitoring in
Kaunas, Lithuania and several places in Sweden
using semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) in
order to estimate and compare PCB, PAH and
pesticides concentrations in air. The results
show, that the sites in Kaunas in general are
more polluted than Swedish sites. The selected
sites in Kaunas are located at municipal air
monitoring stations. Dainava is close to
industrial area and Laisves aleja located in
downtown of Kaunas. The sampling sites were
situated at heavy traffic places. It is not
common to measure long time mean gas phase PAH
concentrations in the air, because the analysis
is too expencive and complex, sampling is time
consuming. Therefore we made an attempt to
compare three week time weighted average (TWA)
data.
Results and discussion PAH From graph below we
can see that PAH concentrations in both locations
were very similar. Phenantrene showed the highest
concentration in Laisves aleja 157 ng/L. There
was also found highest concentrations of
fluoranthene and pyrene 60 ng/L and 20 ng/L,
respectively. PCB The PCB profile of congener
group concentrations in Laisvel aleja and Dainava
are dominated of TriCB followed by TetraCB and
PentaCB. Since the concentrations of TriCB was
found to be relatively higher, it indicates that
the pollution could be more recent. PCB
congeneres were detected at higher concentrations
in Dainava site.
PAH concentrations in sampling sites
PCB concentrations in sampling sites
Materials and methods Semipermeable membrane
devices (SPMDs) are diffusive samplers used for
measuring the concentration of Persistent Organic
Pollutants (POPs) in water and air. SPMD devices
are new, versatile, non-destructive methods,
without any advanced or costly equipment
requirements. Semipermeable membranes filled with
lipophilic solvent are possible to use for the
evaluation of bioavailability of organic
compounds. SPMD data can be used to study
variation in organic pollutant concentrations in
space and time. As an alternative to high volume
sampling, semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs)
were deployed in air during 21 days. Following
sampling sites were choosen for the investigation
Pesticides The pesticide concentrations in the
samples displayed higher concentrations in
Dainava compared with Laisves aleja. The highest
concentration in Dainava were of the ?-HCH 5,0
ng/L. Pollution comparison In the graph to the
left a comparison is made between several sites
in Sweden and two sampling sites in Kaunas. The
concentration in Kaunas city air at sampling
sites is 20 times higher compared with Swedish
urban sites.
Country Site Exposure site
LT DAINAVA Industrial area with heavy traffic
LT LAISVES AL. City centre
SE BORLANGE Green areas surrounding the city
SE SE1 Urban area with pulp mill
SE SE3 Urban area with traffic
SE SE4 Urban area with aliuminium industry
Pesticide concentrations at sampling sites
Comparison of PAH pollution in air
The compounds were dialysed and then fractionated
by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) technique
followed by a silica column. PAHs, PCBs and
pesticides were identified by gas chromatography
and mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Interpretation of
chromatograms and calculation of concentrations
was done using several internal standards (IS).
Estimation of air concentration data were
calculated by using uptake rates in water and
assuming 1L is equal to 1m3. SPMD technology is
here used to estimate ambient TWA (time weighted
average) vapour phase chemical concentrations.
Comparison of air pollution
In the graph to the left a comparison between
the two sites in Kaunas city and a site in Sweden
indicate that the concentration of sumPCB in
Kaunas was elevated compared to Borlange. Higher
concentrations were also identified for HCB (hexa
chlorobenzene). The concentrations of ?-HCH
(purified HCH products which consist of at least
99 ?-isomers are marketed under the comercial
name lindane.) and ?-HCH were higher in Borlange
compared to Laisves aleja site, but smaller than
at Dainava site.

• Conclusions
• Using SPMD it is possible to compare several
  sampling sites in different places and countries
  at the same time
• data from Integrated sampling of bioavaible
  compounds during 21 days was evaluated
• Elevated concentrations of several compounds
  were tentatively identified in air samples from
  Kaunas during this pilot study
• It is difficult to compare SPMD air sampling
  data with data from other sampling methods since
  SPMD is sampling only gas phase compounds
• Further studies to verify these findings are
  recommended, especially for PCB, PAH and g-HCH
• No conclusion about air quality in Kaunas city
  could be done from two sampling sites, since
  local source strongly influence results.

Acknowledgements We wish to acknowledge Umea
University, Socrates program and Kaunas
University of Technology for financial support
and Roman Grabic for some analysis