A Field Comparison of Monitoring Methods for Waste Anesthetic Gases and Ethylene Oxide.

Salisbury-SA; Burroughs-GE; Daniels-WJ; McCammon-C; Lee-SA

NIOSH 1991 Feb:755-758

00210443

Methods for monitoring waste anesthetic gases during surgical procedures in operating rooms and ethylene-oxide (75218) concentrations during the use of gas sterilizers were compared in three field studies. Calibration and operating techniques for several types of direct reading instruments, instrument operational advantages and disadvantages during actual field survey applications, and accuracy and precision of direct reading instruments and conventional air sampling methods were compared. A small community hospital and a large medical university teaching hospital were studied. The results showed that all of the instruments tested gave satisfactory performance for monitoring nitrous-oxide (10024972). Both the Multigas Monitor Type 1302 and the Summit SIP-1000 Portable Gas Chromatograph gave satisfactory performance for the monitoring of both short term and long term exposure to ethylene-oxide. The Photovac 10S50 Portable Gas Chromatograph has been shown to give satisfactory performance for monitoring ethylene-oxide, but unknown operational problems caused failure during these studies. Freon-12 interferences from the 88/12 sterilization gas will produce false positive ethylene-oxide readings or readings with a high positive bias on infrared spectrometers like the Miran 182 and 103.

Workplace-monitoring; Environmental-contamination; Air-quality-monitoring; Organic-vapors; Toxic-gases; Air-monitoring; Health-care-personnel;

75-21-8; 10024-97-2;

19910212

Conference/Symposia Proceedings;

1991

Field Screening Methods for Hazardous Wastes and Toxic Chemicals. Second International Symposium, February 12-14, 1991. Sponsored by U.S. EPA; U.S. DOE; U.S. Army Toxic and Hazardous Materials Agency; U.S. Army Chemical Research Development and Engineering Center; U.S.A.F.; Florida State Univ.; National Environmental Technology Applications Corp.; and NIOSH

FL;