Biologic monitoring of persons exposed to furfural vapors

✍ Scribed by V. Šedivec; J. Flek

• Book ID: 104749540
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1978
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 523 KB
• Volume: 42
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0340-0131
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00385710

✦ Synopsis

In a series of 21 exposure experiments five volunteers, staying in an uncontaminated room, inhaled air with a known and constant concentration of furfural which was led into the gas mask from an adjoining laboratory Total exposure time was 8 hours, interrupted by two 5-minute and one 20-minute break. The dose of furfural retained in the organism was calculated from the concentration of furfural in inspired air, pulmonary retention, minute lung ventilation and the duration of exposure By analysis of defined urine samples, the relation of the retained furfural dose and the excreted "total furoic acid" was determined. A statistical analysis of the data showed that the reliability of the monitoring test depends on the way by which the excretion of the metabolite is expressed. Concentration data (mg/1) have the greatest variance, least variable are data about the amount of the metabolite excreted in a defined time period (mg/time). Recommendations have been made for biological limits, corresponding to an 8hour exposure ( 7 5 h net time) to maximum allowable concentrations of furfural vapor (Soviet MAC 10 mg/m 3 , US MAC 20 mg/m 3 ) Numerical values of these limits are summarised in the table; they are quoted in all usual units (mg/l, mg/l corr , mg/creat , mg/time) and for all basic samples of urine (whole-day, wholeshift, short-term).