Carbon disulfide at a Chinese viscose factory external and internal exposure assessment

This article presents the results of carbon disulfide exposure measurements in a Chinese viscose rayon factory. The objectives of the study were to id entify the external exposure levels at a large factory and to investigate t he 2-thiothiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid (TTCA) concentrations in the urine of the subjects who were exposed to carbon disulfide in the working place a tmosphere. The metabolism of carbon disulfide in the exposed subjects was a lso studied in order to demonstrate the best points in time for the interna l exposure sampling. The measurement of the amount of personal exposure to carbon disulfide in the air of the workplace was performed by GC-FPD; the p resence of TTCA in the workers urine was analyzed by use of a modified HPLC method. The kinetics of TTCA excretion was studied by analyses at differen t time-points both during and after exposure to carbon disulfide in the sub jects. A total of 155 personal samples were obtained. The carbon; disulfide concentration in the staple viscose hall was 13.72+/-1.12 mg m(-3) in term s of the geometric mean+/-geometric standard deviation, and was 20.05+/-1.3 3 mg m(-3) in the filament spinning hall. The TTCA values in the subjects w ho worked in the staple spinning hall were 1.18+/-0.43 mg g(-1) creatinine and 1.07+/-0.38 mg g(-1) creatinine for subjects working in the filament sp inning hall. The best time for TTCA sampling; is at the end of the working shift, the TTCA excretion was stable for a period of 4-12 h after exposure of the subjects to the carbon disulfide. If might be that the Chinese have different anthropometric characteristics; a sampling bias may therefore app ear among different races.