Analysis of ethylene oxide--worker exposure

A personal air sampling method for assessing individual worker exposure to ethylene oxide has been developed. The method is based on trapping ethylene oxide in dilute sulfuric acid where it is converted to ethylene glycol. The ethylene glycol is determined by gas chromatography using a glass column packed with 5% Igepal CO-990 on Teflon T-6. This column produces linear calibration curves and symmetrical peaks. The method has been shown to recover 94.2% ethylene oxide in the 1 to 8 ppm concentration range. The sampling technique is independent of flow and sample size. Advantages over the NIOSH method are discussed.