It became to be ruled to check the concentration of formaldehyde as the estimation of airborne concentration in working environment since March, 2009 and then, liquid chromatography and easily analyzing equipment methods, mainly gas detector tube method, are given as the official methods. When we estimate the airborne formaldehyde concentration in a work place where only formalin is used as a formaldehyde emission source such as a room for pathological examination, it is not necessary to separate formaldehyde and therefore not very reasonable to use liquid chromatography including troublesome procedures. On the other hand, gas detector tube method is convenient but has possibility of causing errors by individual differences. The errors might cause the additional differences of the control classes and of the measures to prevent workers from being exposed to harmful materials. In order to solve these problems and to exam alternative analyzing method for formaldehyde, we tried to measure the concentration by using
14C-labelled one. After
14C-labelled formaldehyde solution is put into the emission source of formaldehyde(formalin solution), the vaporized samples are taken by silica gel tubes quantitatively as usual at the estimation of airborne concentration in working environment. By counting the desorpted amount of radioactivity from silica gel, it was revealed that the obtained concentrations of formaldehyde are correspond to both the calculated values and the values indicated on the gas detector tubes at various concentrations. In this study, we used the amount below the lower activity limits of radioactive material. Except the users who have radioisotope controlled area, we are allowed to use
14C-labeled materials below 10MBq without being regulated under the Law Concerning Prevention of Radiation Hazards. When we use a little amount of
14C-formaldehyde at formaldehyde using area to check the concentration of vaporized formaldehyde, this method was found to be practically useful for the estimation of airborne concentration in working environment.
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