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INTERCOMPARISON OF SAMPLING TECHNIQUES FOR TOXIC ORGANIC COMPOUNDS IN INDOOR AIR
Citation:
Spicer, C., M. Holdren, L. Slivon, R. Coutant, AND D. Shadwick. INTERCOMPARISON OF SAMPLING TECHNIQUES FOR TOXIC ORGANIC COMPOUNDS IN INDOOR AIR. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/4-87/008.
Description:
People spend a major fraction of their time indoors, and there is concern over exposure to volatile organic compounds present in indoor air. The study was initiated to compare several VOC sampling techniques in an indoor environment. The techniques which were compared include distributive air volume sampling, high and low rate passive sampling, and whole air collection in canisters. The study focused on ten target compounds: chloroform, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, benzene, bromodichloromethane, trichloroethylene, toluene, tetrachloroethylene, styrene, p-dichlorobenzene and hexachlorobutadiene. Altogether, ten separate 12-hour sampling experiments were conducted. Two experiments sampled the background air of the residence. For the other eight experiments, the indoor air was spiked with the target compounds. Statistical analysis of the results indicates generally high correlation coefficients (greater than 0.90) between the methods. The most notable exception was benzene, which had lower correlation coefficients. In general, the distributed air volume sampling technique measure concentrations less than or equal to the canister method.