Assessment of Volatile Compound Transference through Firefighter Turnout Gear

There is high concern about the exposure of firefighters to toxic products or carcinogens resulting from combustion during fire interventions. Firefighter turnout gear is designed to protect against immediate fire hazards but not against chemical agents. Additionally, the decontamination of firefigh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of environmental research and public health 2022-03, Vol.19 (6), p.3663
Main Authors: Aliaño-González, María José, Montalvo, Gemma, García-Ruiz, Carmen, Ferreiro-González, Marta, Palma, Miguel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric pressure
Cancer
Carcinogens
Chemical agents
Chromatography
Combustion
Contamination
Decontamination
Discriminant analysis
Exposure
Feasibility studies
Fire departments
Fire exposure
Fire hazards
Fire load
Firefighters
Fires
Gas chromatography
Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry
Gears
Headspace
Humans
Ionic mobility
Occupational Exposure - analysis
Personal Protective Equipment
Principal components analysis
Protective equipment
Quality assessment
Reagents
Skin
Spectrometry
VOCs
Volatile compounds
Volatile organic compounds
Volatile Organic Compounds - analysis
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Summary:There is high concern about the exposure of firefighters to toxic products or carcinogens resulting from combustion during fire interventions. Firefighter turnout gear is designed to protect against immediate fire hazards but not against chemical agents. Additionally, the decontamination of firefighter personal protective equipment remains unresolved. This study evaluated the feasibility of a screening method based on headspace-gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (HS-GC-IMS) in combination with chemometrics (cluster analysis, principal component analysis, and linear discriminant analysis) for the assessment of the transference of volatile compounds through turnout gear. To achieve this, firefighter turnout gears exposed to two different fire scenes (with different combustion materials) were directly analyzed. We obtained a spectral fingerprint for turnout gears that were both exposed and non-exposed to fire scenes. The results showed that (i): the contamination of the turnout gears is different depending on the type of fire loading; and (ii) it is possible to determine if the turnout gear is free of volatile compounds. Based on the latest results, we concluded that HS-GC-IMS can be applied as a screening technique to assess the quality of turnout gear prior to a new fire intervention.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph19063663