Respirator cartridge efficiency studies: VI. Effect of concentration

The service life of organic vapor cartridges was determined for ten vapors at concentrations between 50 and 3000 ppm. The breakthrough time (tb) conformed to the empirical expression tb = aCf, where C is the concentration in ppm and a and be are constants. The average value for b at 10% breakthrough was -0.67 +/- 0.17. The service life is inversely proportional to flow rate for acetone and benzene.