The Respected Agency Will Go Into The Field With Interscan Gas Detectors

Interscan Corporation is pleased to announce that it will soon be supplying several of its portable peracetic acid gas analyzers to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The instruments will be used for exposure assessment, in a variety of workplace environments.

Peracetic acid—also known as peroxyacetic acid and often abbreviated as PAA—is a highly effective antimicrobial, used in a wide range of applications, primarily in the food industry and health care settings. It is also employed as a bleaching agent in the paper and textile industries, in chemical synthesis, and in wastewater disinfection. The commercial product is an equilibrium solution of peracetic acid, hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid, and water.

Owing to its unstable nature, analytics for PAA—not to mention developing a practical calibration method—have been a challenge. Consider that the two other equilibrium compounds are also present in the air. PAA can spontaneously decompose to acetic acid, and it can hydrolyze to acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide. Part of the collaboration between NIOSH and Interscan will involve Interscan's unique PAA calibration procedure.

No OSHA Permissible Exposure Limit, nor NIOSH Recommended Exposure Limit has yet been set for PAA. But, in 2014, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) adopted a Threshold Limit Value–Short-Term Exposure Limit (TLV-STEL) for peracetic acid of 0.4 ppm as a 15-minute time-weighted average (TWA) exposure that should not be exceeded at any time during a workday.

Still, NIOSH has been working on this compound. In 2015, the agency published a draft immediately dangerous to life or health (IDLH) value for peracetic acid of 0.64 ppm, and received public commentary. In March, 2017, the draft IDLH was again open to commentary, the period just having ended. A number of important issues were raised, which will no doubt be part of the NIOSH/Interscan collaboration effort.

John Mora, sensor development engineer for Interscan, said, "Interscan welcomes this opportunity to work with NIOSH, and to help advance occupational safety and health."