Pilot Study of CEN Protocols for the Performance Testing of Workplace Aerosol Sampling Instruments

Exploitable results

The purpose of the project was to examine the experimental, mathematical and statistical protocols for testing workplace aerosol sampling instruments that are described in a European pre-standard. The key objective was to provide CEN with the information necessary to revise the pre-standard into a full European standard. This was achieved by working through the test protocols with eight types of personal inhalable aerosol sampler used for workplace monitoring in Europe. The project identified both strengths and weaknesses in the current test protocols and led to a number of recommendations for revision of the pre-standard, although some important aspects of the pre-standard, outside the scope of this project, still require further work. The recommendations arising from this project were discussed with the relevant CEN Working Group at a joint meeting. The meeting discussed how to revise the pre-standard in the light of the work carried out in the project and carry forward the preparation of a CEN standard for the performance of workplace aerosol sampling instruments. The main recommendations arising from the work carried out are that the test protocols in the CEN standard should if possible be simplified and the scope of the tests required should be reduced, in order to make the standard practical to apply. This may limit the fields of application of the standard, and users of the standard need therefore to be made aware of its limitations by clear and careful presentation. The development and validation of simplified test protocols was outside the remit of this project but some potential solutions worthy of further investigation were identified. % The data on the performances of the personal inhalable samplers tested during this project were affected by large experimental errors, but will nevertheless contribute to decisions on how to incorporate the CEN inhalable sampling convention into European regulation, guidance and industrial hygiene practice.

Exploitable results

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