Determination of Thiaarenes and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Workplace Air of an Aluminum Reduction Plant

Abstract

Quantitation of a variety of tetra-, penta-, and hexacyclic aromatic sulfur heterocycles (thiaarenes) in workplace air of an an aluminum reduction plant has been made by help of gas chromatography with atomic emission detection (GC-AED). Personal exposure to those thiaarenes and to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons depending on work categories has been evaluated. Summarized concentrations of the thiaarenes investigated have been found to be 0.4−19.0 μg/m3. When using sulfur selective AED, samples could be analyzed without a prior separation of the thiaarenes from the PAH. The present data indicate a contribution of thiaarenes to the overall toxicity of coal tar pitch volatiles in this work environment.

Air concentrations and urinary metabolites of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons among paving and remixing workers

“…The PAH concentrations in the breathing zone of the paving workers were low compared to those of some other PAHexposed industrial workers 16,[28][29][30] and also low compared to road paving in which the asphalt contained coal tar pitch. 31 The workers in an impregnation plant, in an aluminium reduction plant and in a coking plant were found to be exposed to high concentrations of PAHs, the air concentrations of pyrene having varied from 0.4-35 mg m 23 .…”

Anthropogenic contributions to global carbonyl sulfide, carbon disulfide and organosulfides fluxes

“…Chlorinated sulfur compounds are also found, typically tri-, tetra-and pentachloro DBTs (Aittola et al, 1996;Sinkkonen et al, 1994), particularly at aluminium reclamation plants. If we assume a molecular weight of 322 and emissions relative to PAHs estimated by Becker et al (1999), we get upper estimates of 0.0016 Gg S a -1 .…”

Clean-up of extracts for nitrated derivatives of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons analyses prior to their gas chromatography determination

“…The disadvantages of this technique is a higher solvent consumption and emulsion formation. 8 Current clean-up techniques utilise several liquid chromatographic methods especially open column or high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) 4,7,[9][10][11] and solid phase extraction (SPE).…”