Formaldehyde as Screen Printing Indoor Pollutant

The presence of formaldehyde in indoor air samples has been detected in five screen printing facilities of Novi Sad, Serbia. Air was sampled five times during one working week for each screen printing facility. The sampling was conducted continuously during 4 hours. The concentrations of formaldehyde were determined by UV-VIS spectrometry at 580 nm. The average concentrations of formaldehyde were in the range from 0.413 to 0.836 ppm. Comparison of the detected concentration levels with the permissible exposure limit of 0.75 ppm (the OSHA standard) and 0.016 (the NIOSH standard) indicated that the average formaldehyde concentration in facility 5 was 1.11 and 52.25 times higher than prescribed values, respectively.