A study on the relative breakthrough time (RBT) of a respirator cartridge for forty-six kinds of organic solvent vapors.

The breakthrough time of a commercially available respirator cartridge was measured for 46 kinds of organic solvents. The condition of the test air flow was set according to the Japanese government standard for the National Approval Test: at 300 ppm of an organic solvent vapor concentration, a temperature of 20 degrees C, a relative humidity of 50 percent, and a flow rate of 30 L/min. The interval between the start of passing the test flow through a cartridge and the time when the concentration of organic solvent vapors at the downstream of the cartridge reached 5 ppm was measured. The ratios of breakthrough times of organic solvents to that of cyclohexane which is designated as the standard test vapor in Japan, were calculated to obtain the relative breakthrough times (RBTs). Nine of the 46 organic solvents had breakthrough times shorter than that of cyclohexane, and these organic solvents with shorter RBTs were characterized by low boiling points and small molecular weights. The RBTs of 34 organic solvents were compared with the breakthrough times reported by Nelson et al. The relationship between the RBTs of this experiment and those reported by Nelson correlated well (correlation coefficient: 0.861).