RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: This paper presents a field evaluation of 3 M 3500 passive badges for measuring 2-methoxyethanol (ME) in a humid working environment. METHODS: A total of 93 pairs of side-by-side active/passive samples, 48 pairs of duplicate active samples, 52 pairs of duplicate passive samples, and three groups of six replicate active/passive samples were compared. Three groups of six replicate active charcoal/active charcoal tube with drying tube samples were also compared to evaluate the humidity effect. RESULTS: No statistical difference was found between the passive badges and active samplers. Linear regression showed the correlation to be high (r = 0.992, slope = 0.973, n = 93) over the range of 0.17-163 ppm. The mean concentration difference was -0.34 ppm and the mean relative error was 3.50%. The intraclass correlation coefficients of 48 duplicate active samples and 52 duplicate passive samples were 0.994 and 0.989, respectively. The precision of replicate passive, active, and active/drying tube samples (n = 6) were 3.84%, 7.14%, and 5.12%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The humidity effect for active samples was insignificant at the low sampling rate (36.3 ml/min). It is therefore concluded that the use of the passive samplers to assess ME exposure produces comparable findings to that of active sampling.