Study of the effects of environmental parameters on the gas/particle partitioning of current-use pesticides in urban air

A filter-XAD-2 resin plug high-volume air sampler was used to collect particulate (P) and gaseous (G) phases of seven pesticides (atrazine, terbuthylazine, alachlor, metolachlor, cymoxanil, diflufenicanil, and fenoxaprop-p-ethyl) and two metabolites (de-ethylatrazine (DEA) and de-ethylterbuthylazine (DET)) in downtown Strasbourg (France). Most of the molecules listed above were found to be associated only with particulate aerosols and only four of them were detected regularly in both atmospheric phases (particulate and gaseous). The results presented in this work showed that models developed previously to describe the gas/particle (G/P) partitioning did not work for currently used pesticides. A new partition equation (Korg, m3 ng−1) was defined for the pesticides under study using environmental parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, and organic carbon content of atmospheric aerosols.