COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF AN INHALABLE AND A TOTAL DUST SAMPLER FOR PERSONAL SAMPLING OF DUST AND POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC-HYDROCARBONS IN THE GAS AND PARTICULATE PHASE

For many years the closed-face plastic cassette has been widely used f or monitoring 'total' dust in working atmospheres. In the late 1980s a different personal sampler was developed at the Institute of Occupati onal Medicine in Edinburgh This so-called IOM sampler was designed to meet the criteria for inhalable dust (EN 481). In this work, a compari son of the closed-face 25 mm Gelman total dust sampler and the IOM inh alable sampler was made for exposure measurements of dust and PAHs amo ng workers in an electrode paste plant. The two samplers were modified in order to permit sampling of both particulate and gas-phase PAHs. T hree groups with different tasks were examined, The particle size dist ribution was determined using personal inhalable dust spectrometers an d the GRIMM particle counter. The results showed that higher concentra tions of dust and particulate PAHs were measured with the IOM inhalabl e sampler than the Gelman total dust sampler and the difference betwee n the samplers was significant, This is in agreement with previously r eported studies. In some samples collected with the IOM sampler very l arge particles were observed. There was no significant difference betw een volatile PAHs measured with the two samplers. For semi-volatile PA Hs a significant difference between the samplers was observed, which w as ascribed to evaporation loss from the filters during storage.