The pilot project “Performance testing of a personal sampler for full-shift sampling of oil mist and oil vapour” has been carried out by the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH), Norway, in collaboration with Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (Fraunhofer ITEM), Hannover, Germany and Statoil ASA.
The aim of this pilot project was to investigate the performance of a recently developed personal semivolatile aerosol dichotomous sampler (SADS) in laboratory with respect to full shift (8–12 hours) sampling of oil mist and oil vapour.
The following conclusions were drawn from the results of this study:
• The sampling efficiency of the SADS sampler at the lower concentration at thermodynamic equilibrium conditions compared to the BIA method was approximately 90 %.
• The average wall loss calculated as particulates using the SADS sampler at thermodynamic equilibrium conditions was 27 %.
• The sampling efficiency of the SADS sampler at the high concentration at thermodynamic non-equilibrium conditions compared to the BIA method was 79 % after drawing clean air through the sampler for 3 hours. However, increased sampling efficiency is expected at lower concentrations, due to the lower absolute mass deposited on the surfaces at lower concentrations.
• The particulate-vapour partitioning determined [...]