Limitation of flow effect on passive sampling accuracy using POCIS with the PRC approach or o-DGT: A pilot-scale evaluation for pharmaceutical compounds

Abstract Flow velocity is known to alter passive sampling accuracy. We investigated the POCIS (Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Sampler) with PRC (Performance Reference Compounds) approach and Diffusive Gradients in Thin Films samplers (o-DGT) to limit the effect of flow on the quantification accuracy of ten model pharmaceuticals compounds (0.16 ≤ log K OW  ≤ 4.51). POCIS and o-DGT samplers were exposed for seven days in controlled pilot-scale (hundreds of liters) experiments under quiescent or flowing (2  −1 ) conditions. Under flowing conditions, both POCIS-PRC and o-DGT efficiently limited the flow effect and led, in most cases, to biases within analytical uncertainty (20%). Under quiescent conditions, o-DGT performed accurately (bias