[Risks attributable to the occurrence of tin, silver and tungsten in the air of the workplace environment--methods of determination].

Tin, silver and tungsten constitute serious threat to the health of the employees of Polish industry. As no standard methods for determination of those metals in the atmospheres of workplaces were available, measurements of their concentrations in the workplace atmospheres were not performed, and, therefore, determination of the resultant risks to the health of the people exposed to those metals was not possible. A spectrophotometric method of determination has been developed for tin, which is based on the formation of coloured Sn(IV)--pyrocatechine complexes in the dilute sulfuric and citric acid medium in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (absorbance determined at lambda = 600 nm). The detectability of the method is 0.5 mg/m3. To ensure the selectivity of the method in the presence of foreign cations and acid anions. Sn should be pre-separated from the disturbing ions by the extraction method. For silver determination, a method using atomic absorption spectrometry with air-C2H2 flame has been developed. The detectability of the method is 0.005 mg/m3. The presence of cations of other metals or of acid anions does not affect the results obtained with this method. The new-developed method of tungsten determination involves reaction with calcium thiocyanate in HCl medium in the presence of stannous chloride, followed by assessing the tungsten complex, pre-extracted with izoamyl, alcohol, by spectrophotometry at lambda = 405 nm. This method enables determination of 1 mg/m3 tungsten. The results are affected only by the presence of Mo in quantities exceeding 4 mg/m3 and Al in quantities exceeding 2 mg/m3.