Assessment of occupational exposure to gaseous peracetic acid.

Objectives: In order to assess short-term exposure to peracetic acid (PAA) in disinfection processes, the Authors compared 4 industrial hygiene monitoring methods to evaluate their proficiency in measuring airborne PAA concentrations.

Material And Methods: An active sampling by basic silica gel impregnated with methyl p-tolyl sulfoxide (MTSO), a passive solid phase micro-extraction technique using methyl p-tolyl sulfide (MTS) as on-fiber derivatization reagent, an electrochemical direct-reading PAA monitor, and a novel visual test strip PAA detector doped with 2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline)-6-sulfonate were evaluated and tested over the range of 0.06-16 mg/m3, using dynamically generated PAA air concentrations.