2-Isopropoxyethanol – Determination of 2-isopropoxyethanol in workplace air using gas chromatography (GC-FID)
Air Monitoring Method – Translation of the German Version from 2022
Jörg Karmann1 (Method development)Ralph Hebisch1 (Head of the working group “Air Analyses” of the Permanent Senate Commission for the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Work Area, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)
Ralf Schmitt2 (External verification)
Thomas Helmut Brock3 (Head of the working group “Analytics”)
Andrea Hartwig4 (Chair of the Permanent Senate Commission for the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Work Area, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)
MAK Commission5
1 Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA), Friedrich-Henkel-Weg 1-25, 44149 Dortmund, Germany
2 BASF SE, Carl-Bosch-Straße 38, 67056 Ludwigshafen, Germany
3 German Social Accident Insurance, Institution for the raw materials and chemical industry, Prevention – Department of Hazardous Substances, Biological Agents and Analytical Chemistry, Kurfürsten-Anlage 62, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany
4 Institute of Applied Biosciences, Department of Food Chemistry and Toxicology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Adenauerring 20a, Building 50.41, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
5 Permanent Senate Commission for the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Work Area, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Kennedyallee 40, 53175 Bonn, Germany
Abstract
This analytical method is a validated measurement procedure for the determination of 2-isopropoxyethanol [109-59-1] in workplace air in a concentration range of one tenth up to twice the currently valid occupational exposure limit value (OELV) in Germany of 44 mg/m3. For sampling a defined volume of air is drawn through a sorbent tube (for thermal desorption) filled with Chromosorb 106. The flow rate is set to 5 ml/min and sampling is performed over 2 hours (which corresponds to a sampling volume of 600 ml). The samples to which cyclooctane is added as internal standard are thermally desorbed. The quantitative determination is based on a calibration function, whereby the 2-isopropoxyethanol concentration of the calibration standard is plotted against the intensities, calculated over the internal cyclooctane standard. The limit of quantification is 4.48 mg/m3 based on an air sample volume of 600 ml. The mean recovery is 92% and the expanded uncertainty for the validation range of 4.62 to 83.08 mg/m3 is 28.4%.
