Development of a novel chamber for evaluating the performance of passive air samplers according to ISO 16107

Abstract

Chemical exposures should be measured to assess the health risks from chemicals in the work environment to workers. Passive air samplers (PAS) that do not require a power source are useful for assessing individual exposure to chemicals. Therefore, the International Organization for Standardization has determined ISO 16107 as the standard method for evaluating the performance of PAS devises. However, evaluation studies are limited due to the high cost of evaluation chambers. Here, we developed a novel chamber with a simple configuration and compact design in accordance with ISO 16107. The chamber successfully control temperature, humidity, wind speed, and VOC concentration, which are required in ISO 161017. We evaluated sampling rates of the PAS devises for toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene as target volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The relative standard deviations of the sampling rates were below 10% under 7 conditions, demonstrating that the PAS devises had good accuracy for these VOC monitoring. The results in the present study revealed the usefulness of the developed chamber for accurately evaluating the performance of PAS devises. This study can contribute to improve workplace environments for monitoring chemical pollution by low-cost PAS devises.