The quality of chemical analysis is an important aspect of passive sampling-based environmental assessments. The present study reports on a proficiency testing program for the chemical analysis of hydrophobic organic compounds in silicone and low-density polyethylene (LDPE) passive samplers and hydrophilic compounds in polar organic chemical integrative samplers. The median between-laboratory coefficients of variation (CVs) of hydrophobic compound concentrations in the polymer phase were 33% (silicone) and 38% (LDPE), similar to the CVs obtained in four earlier rounds of this program. The median CV over all rounds was 32%. Much higher variabilities were observed for hydrophilic compound concentrations in the sorbent: 50% for the untransformed data and a factor of 1.6 after log transformation. Limiting the data to the best performing laboratories did not result in less variability. Data quality for hydrophilic compounds was only weakly related to the use of structurally identical internal standards and was unrelated to the choice of extraction solvent and extraction time. Standard deviations of the aqueous concentration estimates for hydrophobic compound sampling by the best performing laboratories were 0.21 log units for silicone and 0.27 log units for LDPE (factors of 1.6 to 1.9). The implications are that proficiency testing programs may give more realistic estimates of uncertainties in chemical analysis than within-laboratory quality control programs and that these high uncertainties should be taken into account in environmental assessments.

Civil Environmental and Construction Engineering Texas Tech University Lubbock Texas 79409 1023 United States

Deltares Utrecht 3584 BK The Netherlands

DioxinLab E and H Services Inc Dobrá 739 51 Czech Republic

Envirostatus LLC Lubbock Texas 79415 United States

Faculty of Fisheries and Protection of Waters South Bohemian Research Center of Aquaculture and Biodiversity of Hydrocenoses University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice Vodňany 38925 Czech Republic

Federal Institute of Hydrology Koblenz Rheinland Pfalz 56068 Germany

Graduate School of Oceanography University of Rhode Island Narragansett Rhode Island 02882 United States

INRAE UR RiverLy Villeurbanne 69625 France

Laboratoire Chimie Environnement Aix Marseille University CNRS Aix en Provence 13545 France

Laboratoire de l'Environnement et de l'Alimentation de la Vendée La Roche sur Yon 85021 France

Marine Environmental Engineering Gyeongsang National University Tongyeong 53064 Republic of Korea

Marine Institute Galway H91 R673 Ireland

METIS Sorbonne Université CNRS EPHE PSL University UMR 7619 Paris 75005 France

NIVA Norwegian Institute for Water Research Oslo 0579 Norway

PaSOC Kimswerd 8821 LV The Netherlands

Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences The University of Queensland Woolloongabba Queensland 4102 Australia

RECETOX Faculty of Science Masaryk University Brno 61137 Czech Republic

Research Institute of Environment Agriculture and Fisheries Osaka Prefecture Habikino Osaka 583 0862 Japan

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences Oostende 8400 Belgium

School of Criminal Justice University of Lausanne Lausanne 1015 Switzerland

Scientific Institute of Public Service Liège 4000 Belgium

University of Shizuoka Shizuoka 422 8526 Japan

Wageningen Environmental Research Wageningen 6708 PB The Netherlands

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