A comparative study of real-time monitoring detection and active sampling measurements in evaluating exposure levels to ammonia

Publication

Occupational exposure to ammonia is an important issue in the waste management sector. The aim of this work was to provide a comparative study of two ammonia measurement techniques in the workplace air of anaerobic digestion-composting plants. These two techniques (offline active collection of air samples followed by analysis and real-time monitoring) were simultaneously deployed in several plants to assess operators potential exposure to ammonia, and data were compared. Results show that there are linear correlations between concentrations obtained from both methods. The combination of both online and offline methods facilitates the analysis of a work area or station in order to improve the efficiency of prevention measures and to provide an accurate quantification of operators exposure for compliance checking of OELs.