Estimating Service Lives of Organic Vapor Cartridges II: A Single Vapor at All Humidities

Abstract

A widely used equation model for estimating service lives of organic vapor air-purifying respirator cartridges has been updated with more recent research results. It has been expanded to account for effects of high relative humidities. Adsorption capacity competition between water vapor and organic vapor is largely explained by mutual exclusion of adsorption volume of the activated carbon. The Dubinin/Radushkevich equation is used to describe the adsorption isotherms of both water and organic vapors. Effects of relative humidity and adsorbed water on adsorption rates are described by an empirical correlation with breakthrough times. The dynamic natures of adsorption and competition are incorporated using an expanding zone model with displaced water rollup. The complete model has been tested and verified with published and unpublished data from many sources.

Keywords:

• cartridge
• humidity
• organic vapor
• respirator
• service life

Acknowledgments

This work was performed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy and funded by the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.