Abstract
A technique has been devised to use infrared spectroscopy for examination of organic vapor personal air monitoring badges. These badges (passive dosimeters) are traditionally examined by liquid desorption followed by gas chromatography of the resulting solution of air contaminants. The GC method assumes prior knowledge of the presence of specific compounds, and, if additional peaks appear in the chromatogram they are often ignored. Conversely, if the analysis is done by infrared spectroscopy, much more information is obtained both to confirm the expected contaminants and to identify any unsuspected ones that appear in the spectrum. The infrared spectral procedure involves the usual carbon disulfide desorption, followed by withdrawal of a portion of the CS2 solution with a syringe, and either evaporation into a 20-meter gas infrared cell, or examination in a 0.5 mm liquid cell. The background CS2 spectrum does not seriously interfere with the identification and quantitative measurement of most organic compounds. Details are given for routine analysis of DuPont PRO-TEK® air badges by this method.