Program for Monitoring Potential Contamination in the Laboratory Following the Handling and Analyses of Chlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins and Dibenzofurans

A program of safety wiping has been established to monitor the workplace for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans. The procedure uses isooctaine wetted wipes to obtain the samples followed by a simple alumina column cleanup procedure and gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric analysis of the samples. A quality control program has been set up as a check on the effectiveness of the procedure. Detection limits of five nanograms per wipe are routinely obtained for the tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxins and tetrachlorodibenzofurans.