Monitoring of exposure to cyclohexanone through the analysis of breath and urine

Occupational exposure to cyclohexanone was studied for 59 workers through the analysis of environmental air, alveolar air, and urinary cyclohexanol. Environmental cyclohexanone exposure was measured by personal sampling with a carbon-felt passive dosimeter. Cyclohexanone in alveolar air and cyclohexanol in urine were determined with gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector. The end-of-shift urinary cyclohexanol levels correlated well with the time-weighted average environmental cyclohexanone values (r = 0.66). Urinary cyclohexanol corrected for creatinine correlated best with cyclohexanone in air (r = 0.77); when corrected for specific gravity, it gave a similar correlation coefficient (r = 0.73). When the time-weighted average of the exposure was 25 ppm, the corresponding calculated concentration for urinary cyclohexanol was 54.5 mg/1, 23.3 mg/g of creatinine, or 43.5 mg/l at a specific gravity of 1.018. The relationship between cyclohexanone exposure and its concentration in exhaled breath was found to be poorer than that for cyclohexanone exposure and the urinary metabolite (r = 0.51).