Formaldehyde has been widely used as a disinfectant and preservative in medical fields. Medicalstudents during their dissection course are exposed to formaldehyde, whose exposure is recentlyconsidered to be one of the causes of multiple chemical sensitivity. At first, we evaluated formaldehydeexposures that occurred in the gross anatomy laboratory with a general ventilation system.Formaldehyde in air was sampled by an active 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH)-silica gel cartridge,extracted with acetonitrile and analyzed with a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
Efficient ventilation of indoor environments shall guarantee not only a proper oxygen flow for human breathing, but also an effective removal of pollutants released by human metabolism and building materials. Usually, high ventilation rates are adopted to reach these two goals, with a consequent high energy consumption for buiding climatization.
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