• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.20-31
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• 2008

A respirator is useful to protect a worker from the harmful gases and vapors in the workplace, and the evaluation of respirator cartridge service life is important for the worker's health and safety. The performance of cartridge is effected by several factors such as concentration of gas and vapor, humidity, temperature, adsorbents and cartridge packing density. Adsorption model was applied to both sampling tube and respirator cartridge to predict the service life for organic vapors. The variables of the adsorption model were measured from the experiment with the sampling tube, and it was used to predict the service life of respirator cartridge. In the experiment, we used carbon tetrachloride as a organic vapor and activated carbon take out respirator cartridge as activated carbon. As a result, it was possible to predict the service life of respirator cartridge and predicted service life was quite correct. Breakthrough time decreased with increase of CCl4 concentration. In case of sampling tube, adsorbed amount of CCl4 was larger than respirator cartridge due to linear velocity. Also, rate constant of sampling tube was larger than respirator cartridge, because of, effect of flow rate, packing density. In the prediction of service life of respirator cartridge by using sampling tube, the time required for 50% contaminant breakthrough(${\tau}$) is more effective than the rate constant(k').