A comparison study between passive and active workplace personal air monitoring techniques for airborne isopropyl alcohol concentrations

Publication date: Available online 25 May 2017 Source:Journal of Chemical Health and Safety Author(s): Austin K. Simons, Rodney G. Handy, Darrah K. Sleeth, Leon F. Pahler, Matthew S. Thiese This research project involved a comparison between the performance of active and passive sampling methods used to collect isopropyl alcohol vapor in an industrial setting. This field experiment was conducted in a real-world industry setting with workers exposed to isopropyl alcohol. In order to create sample sets, passive diffusive samplers (3M 3520 Organic Vapor Monitor) were paired, side-by-side, with active samplers (charcoal solid sorbent tubes). A total of 17 paired sample sets were collected, which yielded data with a non-parametric distribution. Post hoc analysis showed that 4 of the 17 paired sample sets were potential outliers. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that the passive samplers were significantly different from the active air samples (alpha=0.05), regardless whether or not the potential outliers were included or excluded from the data. A linear regression analysis found a linear relationship between active and passive sampling results. An R2 value of 0.97 (when including potential outliers) and 0.79 (when excluding potential outliers) suggests that the model fits well with the data. Satisfactory correlation between the samplers was found when including potential outliers (r=0.9859) and excluding potential outliers (r=0.8863). The passive samplers reported higher ...
Source: Journal of Chemical Health and Safety - Category: Chemistry Source Type: research