Alternatives for benzene in the extraction of bitumen fume from exposure sample media

Benzene is frequently used to extract collected bitumen fumes from personal sampler substrates. However, this solvent is particularly dangerous because of its carcinogenicity (group 1 of IARC classification). Therefore, to prevent the exposure of laboratory technicians to benzene during the fume extraction step from samplers, a compromise had to be found to identify a less toxic solvent with the same extraction capacity. To compare the extraction capacities of selected solvents, bitumen fumes were generated in the laboratory from three different batches of road surfacing bitumen collected on dedicated bitumen fume samplers. The samplers were then extracted by benzene and the solvents tested. Of eleven selected solvents less toxic than benzene and used in studies on bitumen and bitumen fume analyses, n-hexane and n-heptane were identified as alternatives to benzene. In particular, the results demonstrated that n-heptane was the best candidate solvent for benzene substitution, due to its extraction efficiency comparable to benzene for the three bitumen fumes tested and its low toxicity, which is highly compatible with benzene substitution.