Development and validation of personal monitoring methods for low levels of acrylonitrile in workplace atmosphere: I. Test atmosphere generation and solvent desorption methods.

The purpose of this study was to optimize monitoring methods and to investigate new technology for the determination of low levels of acrylonitrile (0.05 to 5 ppm) in workplace atmospheres. In the first phase of the study, a dynamic atmosphere generation system was developed to produce low levels of acrylonitrile in simulated workplace atmospheres. Various potential sorbents were investigated in the second phase, and the candidate methods were compared in a laboratory validation study over a concentration range from 0.05 to 5 ppm acrylonitrile in the presence of potential interferences and under relative humidity conditions from 30% to 95% RH. A collection tube containing 600 mg Pittsburgh coconut base charcoal was found to be the optimum tube for sampling for a full 8-hr shift. No breakthrough was observed over the concentrations and humidities tested. The recovery was 91.3% with a total relative precision of +/- 21% over the test range, and the recovery was not affected by storage for up to five weeks.