Evaluation of carbon felt dosimetry in comparison with one-shot air sampling method and biological monitoring: a field survey.

Abstract

Carbon felt dosimeters were applied for both personal sampling and stationary sampling to evaluate the contamination of work environment in a rubber container-bag manufacturing plant where toluene was the sole organic vapor in air. Toluene determination by one-shot air sampling was also carried out with a portable gas chromatograph, while urinary hippuric acid of the workers was measured both by colorimetric method and by gas chromatography. The time-weighted average (TWA) of toluene concentrations measured with stationary samplers agreed well with those obtained by repeated one-shot air analysis. The TWA values obtained by personal sampling did not agree with those by stationary sampling and the ratios between the paired results, i.e., the ones from personal samplers over their counterparts from stationary samplers, varied in a wide range from 1.84 to 5.33. The TWA of toluene concentrations measured by personal sampling agreed with the results from the biological monitoring. Reversely, no obvious correlation was observed between the results from the biological monitoring and those from stationary sampling. Carbon felt dosimeter is evaluated in comparison with one-shot air sampling and also with biological monitoring.