Iran Occupational Health

  Background and aims

  In the absence of End of Service Life Indicator (ESLI), a cartridge change schedule should be established for ensuring that cartridges are changed before their end of service life. The aim of this study was determining the efficiency of respirator change schedule and presenting a suitable schedule for changing the cartridges before their end of service life in a petrochemical complex.

  Methods

  Required information for change criteria, number and time between changing the cartridges were gathered through the existing records in the industry. Also the highest values of measured environmental conditions were used as a worse case condition for estimation of service life of cartridges. Technical data and specification of used cartridges in the industry were collected through the cartridges manufactures.

  Manufacturer's service life software was used for estimation of cartridge service life and 10% of threshold limit values were considered for estimation of breakthrough time of cartridges.

  Results

  The results show that there is no effective change schedule for respirator cartridges in the studied industry. Also there was a significant difference between current schedule and developed schedule for changing the respirators in the studied industry.

  Conclusion

  Relying on odor thresholds and other warning properties solely as the basis for changing respirator chemical cartridges is not allowed and a change out schedule should be developed base on workplace conditions and specification of respirator cartridges.