Service life of respirator cartridges for formaldehyde
To date there is no NIOSH-approved air-purifying respirator which will effectively remove formaldehyde gas. Because of formaldehyde's high vapor pressure, service life values calculated using the adsorption isotherm and Wheeler equations indicate that organic vapor cartridges containing activated carbon will last less than 10 minutes at concentrations greater than 10 ppM. Studies were initiated to identify a suitable sorbent for this potentially dangerous material. The project involves the following steps: develop a method for producing relatively high concentrations (20 ppM) of a formaldehyde test mixture; verify this test concentration using the NIOSH-approved chromotropic acid wet chemical technique; and survey a wide variety of sorbents, both plain and impregnated, in hopes of identifying a suitable air-purifying cartridge for formaldehyde. A dynamic formaldehyde generation system was fabricated in which formaldehyde was produced by continuously injecting formalin using a syringe pump. The concentration was monitored using an infrared analyzer and checked using the chromotropic acid technique. Twenty-five cartridges were tested for service life at concentrations of formaldehyde gas from 7.1 to 14.8 ppM. Acid gas cartridges and those containing Pittsburgh FCA or ASC showed superior service life.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 5731725
- Report Number(s):
- UCID-19155; ON: DE82005111
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
An evaluation of the effect of source and concentration on three methods for the measurement of formaldehyde in indoor air
Analysis of Air-Purifying Respirator (APR) and Powered Air-Purifying Respirator (PAPR) Cartridge Performance Testing on a Hanford AX Tank Farm Exhauster Slipstream Volume 1
Related Subjects
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
FORMALDEHYDE
FILTRATION
RESPIRATORS
PERFORMANCE TESTING
AIR POLLUTION
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CHROMOTROPIC ACID
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FILTERS
GASES
MONITORING
SERVICE LIFE
TRACE AMOUNTS
ALDEHYDES
DATA
FLUIDS
HYDROXY COMPOUNDS
INFORMATION
NUMERICAL DATA
ORGANIC ACIDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC SULFUR COMPOUNDS
POLLUTION
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SULFONIC ACIDS
TESTING
500200* - Environment
Atmospheric- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (-1989)
570000 - Health & Safety