Abstract
Five diffusion organic vapor monitors and charcoal tubes were exposed to industrial atmospheres containing benzene, toluene and xylene in sets of six a piece in order to evaluate the relative performance of these devices under normal field conditions. The analytical results were treated with two-way analysis of variance, and the least significant difference test was applied to the mean values to further refine the data. The results of this investigation showed that each sampler generally had a high precision. There was, however, a numerically significant difference between the types of samplers. This may be explained by examining the statistics and noting that there was very little variation around the mean values; thus, a small variation between samplers appeared numerically significant. Despite this significant numerical difference, from the pragmatic point of view, the samplers provided essentially equivalent results which allowed the industrial hygienist to determine what action was appropriate. Overall performance of all the sampler types was very good. Each type of sampler could be used for industrial hygiene evaluations with confidence.