An understanding of global environmental pollution requires sensitive high-resolution analytical methods to detect contaminants at trace level concentrations (≤ppb), to accurately assess potential effects associated with chronic low-level exposure. Additionally, the focus of environmental risk assessments has evolved to consider not only total concentrations but also bioavailable fractions. Diffusive gradient in thin-film passive samplers (DGTs) can be deployed in a variety of matrices to accumulate contaminants through diffusion. Due to their simple design, DGTs can be manipulated and adjusted to fit the experimental or monitoring purpose and contaminant of interest. Mercury (Hg) is a ubiquitous trace element of global concern that accumulates in biota and concentrates through the food chain as organic methylmercury. Existing reviews on environmental Hg research mention DGTs as a promising and successful tool to quantify the flux of labile species over a broad range of environmental matrices. This is the first comprehensive review of current literature describing the development and environmental deployment of mercury specific DGTs. Given the multi-facetted nature of this research, this review discusses the impact of DGT configuration and Hg speciation on the interpretation of analytical data and addresses the application of DGT passive samplers in bioavailability studies.

中文翻译：

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利用薄膜扩散梯度 (DGT) 推进环境汞研究：开发、增长和未来

了解全球环境污染需要灵敏的高分辨率分析方法来检测痕量浓度（≤ppb）的污染物，以准确评估与长期低水平暴露相关的潜在影响。此外，环境风险评估的重点已演变为不仅考虑总浓度，还考虑生物可利用分数。薄膜无源采样器 (DGT) 中的扩散梯度可部署在各种基质中，通过扩散积累污染物。由于设计简单，DGT 可以进行操作和调整，以适应实验或监测目的以及感兴趣的污染物。汞 (Hg) 是全球关注的一种普遍存在的微量元素，它在生物群中积累，并以有机甲基汞的形式通过食物链浓缩。现有的环境汞研究评论提到 DGT 作为一种有前途且成功的工具，可以量化各种环境基质中不稳定物种的通量。这是对描述汞专用 DGT 的开发和环境部署的当前文献的首次全面综述。鉴于这项研究的多方面性质，本综述讨论了 DGT 配置和汞形态对分析数据解释的影响，并讨论了 DGT 被动采样器在生物利用度研究中的应用。