AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
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Feasibility Test of Cellulose Filter for Collection of Sulfuric Acid Mist
CHUFAN ZHOU, Chih-Hsiang Chien, Alexandros Theodore, Chang-Yu Wu, Yu-Mei Hsu, Brian Birky, University of Florida
Abstract Number: 671 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract As a known human carcinogen listed by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), exposure to strong inorganic acid mists containing sulfuric acid has been the subject of various occupational health studies. OSHA Method ID-113 and NIOSH Method 7908 instruct the use of MCE filter and quartz fiber or PTFE filter for sampling sulfuric acid mist. The advantages of these filters include extremely good chemical resistance and high collection efficiency although they suffer from fragility, high pressure drop and high cost. Cellulose filter, which is inexpensive and has excellent tensile strength, may be a viable alternative, but its chemical resistance and recovery of sulfuric acid have not been investigated yet.
To avail a low-cost personal sampler for inorganic acid mist, cellulose filter was selected as the collection medium, and its feasibility toward sulfuric acid sampling was investigated. Intact 37 mm filters were observed after they were impregnated by 50 – 500 µg of sulfuric acid for seven days. More than 95% recovery was achieved for these impregnated filters. Mass penetration during eight-hour sampling tests remained stable from 0.36% – 0.74%. These results demonstrate the feasibility and reliability of cellulose filters for collecting sulfuric acid mists.
As sulfur dioxide commonly co-exists with sulfuric acid in industrial settings and its analysis procedure may yield positive interference of sulfuric acid, a mixture of sulfuric acid aerosol generated by a Collison nebulizer and sulfur dioxide gas from a cylinder was tested to assess if the presence of sulfur dioxide gas would affect the collection of sulfuric acid mist on cellulose filters. The results of which will be presented in the conference.