Air monitoring of solvent exposed workers with passive samplers in comparison to “biological monitoring (BM)"†

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A study was performed comparing ambient air monitoring (AM) and biological monitoring (BM) in order to evaluate the reliability of passive sampling (PS) in occupational medicine. Five groups of persons (total number = 188) exposed to tetrachloroethene, isopropanol, toluene, xylene and styrene at the workplace were examined. AM was performed over several hours using one or two brands of passive samplers (Monitor 3500 and/or ORSA 5). BM includes the determination of the solvent and specific metabolites resp. in blood or urine samples taken at the end of workshift. On the basis of our results we recommend that PS can supply relevant data for the estimation of external exposure to several solvents like chlorinated‐ and aromatic‐hydrocarbons.